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TURKEY PROMISES DIVERSITY AT FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR – FEATURE

Earthtimes (press release), UK
June 12 2008

Berlin – Turkey promised Thursday to bring its cultural diversity
this October to the Frankfurt Book Fair, where its literature will
have guest-of-honour status this year. Speaking from Frankfurt,
organizers said 350 authors and translators from Turkey will be at
the world’s principal book fair, presenting their work to publishers
from round the globe and touring Frankfurt and other German cities
to meet literature lovers.

Ethnic minorities will be included, said Muge Gursoy Sokmen, co-chair
of the organizing committee.

She said Kurdish authors Lal Lales and Seyhmus Diken, Armenian writers
Migirdic Margosyan and Jaklin Celik, and Jewish writer Mario Levi
would be making appearances in person.

At the October 15-19 fair, a special exhibition about Turkish
literature is to also highlight the little-known "layers" that are
woven in with Turkic origins in the country’s culture today.

"You’ll see how it includes Arab or Armenian or Byzantine roots too,"
she said.

"We have to treat the heritage of our cultural diversity with respect,"
said Sokmen, who is a leftist Istanbul publisher. "We see this as a
very rich resource."

Guest-of-honour shows over the past three decades at Frankfurt
sometimes focus on small, obscure nations, but there will be no
forgetting this year’s.

The cultural ferment in Turkey, where intellectuals are arguing about
whether and how political Islam can be reconciled with modernity, is
not just a literary topic, but also world news, with Turkish judges
now mulling a ban on Turkey’s AKP ruling party.

Debate about whether the AKP, which has Islamic roots, is moving Turkey
forwards or backwards arouses deep passions not only in Turkey itself,
but in the Islamic world and the West too.

Germans’ ambivalence about whether to accept Turkey as a European
Union member and their troubled relationship with Turks, the main
ethnic minority in the country, make Frankfurt an apt place to hear
Turkish intellectuals speak about their nation’s huge strides.

"At least 2.5 million people here are of Turkish origin and there
is a rich German Turkish literature. That’s one reason Turkey is
felt here to be very close, as if it were a next-door neighbour,"
said Juergen Boos, the book fair chief executive.

Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Literature Prize winner in 2006, will help
Turkish President Abdullah Gul open the fair.

Hundreds of performers, artists and other creative people will round
out the show.

Ahmet Ari, the coordinator of the Turkish presentation, said the show
would not just focus on the riches of Turkish literature awaiting
translation into other languages, but also provide room for political
controversy about a nation going through rapid change.

He said Turkey had greatly improved democracy in recent years and
there was no longer a single author in jail on account of political
views. Turkish state television had begun its first non-Turkish-
language broadcasts just a few days ago, he added.

He was referring to official Turkey’s decades-old policy of repressing
minority languages. The centre-right government of AKP Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has eased many restrictions in another move
being closely watched from around the world.

Turkey has 1,724 publishing houses with annual sales equivalent to
810 million dollars (516 million euros).

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the major opportunity in world book
publishing to boost exports. In the international pavilions, publishers
and literary agents negotiate on translation rights.

For a German audience, the fair celebrates the newest and best books
available at Christmas, the main sales season for German books.

BUSH IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES SENT TO JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
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PanARMENIAN.Net
12.06.2008

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to send articles of
impeachment against President George W. Bush to a committee that is
not likely to hold hearings before the end of his term.

By 251-166, House members dispatched the measure to the Judiciary
Committee on Wednesday – a procedure often used to kill legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi long ago declared the prospects for
impeachment proceedings "off the table."

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who ran for president earlier this year,
insists that his resolution deserves more consideration. He spent more
than four hours Monday night reading his 35 articles of impeachment
into the record, including charges that Bush manufactured a false
case for going to war against Iraq.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Tuesday that the Democratic-led
Congress was holding the Bush administration accountable and
questioned spending time on impeachment in the "waning months of this
administration’s tenure."

An election looms in which every House seat, a third of those in
the Senate and the presidency are up for grabs. House leaders are
staunchly against spending the remaining time in the abbreviated
legislative schedule on impeachment proceedings.

The House vote sent the impeachment articles to the House Judiciary
Committee, chaired by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who had once vowed
to hold impeachment hearings. He wouldn’t immediately comment on the
articles’ prospects for hearings.

Democratic aides widely suggested those gauging the bills prospects
look to a precedent: the impeachment articles against Vice President
Dick Cheney, which were sent to Conyers’ committee in November. There’s
no evidence they will be considered before the Bush administration
leaves office in January.

Those were Kucinich’s, too. Republicans, seeing a chance to
force Democrats into an embarrassing debate, voted to bring up the
resolution. Democrats countered by pushing through a motion to scuttle
the bill from the floor.

Kucinich’s articles also charge Bush with failing to provide troops
with vehicle armor, illegally detaining both foreign nationals and
Americans, condoning torture, mishandling the government’s response
to Hurricane Katrina and undermining efforts to address global warning.

"It is imperative that members of Congress have a thorough opportunity
to read the articles of impeachment and study the documentation,"
Kucinich said in a statement, the AP reports.

INTRODUCING A THREE-TIER JUDICIAL SYSTEM

KarabakhOpen
11-06-2008 12:21:09

The chief justices and judges of the vacant positions in the Court
of Appeal and the First Instance Court must be appointed till June
20, 2008.

According to the Constitution, Karabakh must have a three-tier judicial
system which consists of the First Instance Court, the Court of Appeal
and the Supreme Court. The highest court is the Supreme Court which
includes the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation which
will start operating from June 1, 2009.

"One of the guarantees of the independence of the judicial power will
be the Council of Justice which will replace the amorphous Magistrate
Council," said the adviser to the NKR president Volodya Osipyan in
an interview with the Azat Artsakh.

The creation of the new judicial system will start from the
establishment of the Court of Appeal. According to the law, there
will be one Court of Appeal which has 6 judges and the chief justice,
whose jurisdiction will include the entire republic.

>From July 1, 2008 the First Instance Court of Kashatagh will be
dissolved, and the NKR First Instance Court will be reorganized into
the NKR First Instance Court of Common Jurisdiction. The first instance
court will have chief justice and 9 judges.

COMMISSION ON PROTECTION OF ECONOMIC COMPETITION INITIATES PROCEEDING BASED ON MASS MEDIA PUBLICATIONS

14402
Noyan tapan
jUNE 11, 2008

YEREVAN, JUNE 11, NOYAN TAPAN. At the June 11 sitting, the RA State
Commission on Protection of Economic Competition initiated a proceeding
based on the publications in Aravot daily and ,
according to which nitrogen fertilizer is sold for 9,500-15,00 drams in
the market, whereas the state gives a subsidy for this commodity. Some
big economic entities explained to reporters that they sell fertilizer
for 5,050, 6,200 and 6,800 drams.

According to a press release submitted to NT, the commission recently
examined the structure of the nitrogen fertilizer market and by the May
27 decision, it considered Dvin Holding-Azotinvest companies as a group
of persons with a dominating position and put them on the respective
register (Dvin Holding is one of the founders of Azotinvest operating
in the given market, which, under the RA Law on Protection of Economic
Competition, means that these two companies are to be considered as
a group of persons and they operate as one economic entity in the
market). Dvin Holding-Azotinvest group of persons occupies 81.2%
of the market.

The Commission also discussed Shen-Concern company’s application
about decentralization. Shen-Concern informed the Commission that
one of its shareholders intends to sell its stake to two other big
shareholders. In accordance with the RA Law on Protection of Economic
Competition, the company presented the decentralization declarations
of its three big shareholders in anticipation of receiving permission
for concluding this deal.

Having examined the presented documents, the Commission came to the
conclusion that the given deal is made within a company, so it will
ot affect the competition field. It was decided to end the proceeding.

SERGEI MARKEDONOV: "TATARSTAN AUTONOMY MODEL DOES NOT COINCIDE WITH NAGORNO KARABAKH"

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
June 11 2008

Baku. Tamara Grigoryeva-APA. "Tatarstan Autonomy model does not
coincide with Nagorno Karabakh", analyst Sergei Markedonov addressed
Yerevan-Moscow-Baku video-conference, APA reports.

He explained that there were not victims of military conflict in
Tatarstan.

"Tatarstan did not announce its separation from Russia and ethnic
cleansing was not committed in Tatarstan. Negation of Tatarstan model
does not mean that Nagorno Karabakh should be given independence",
he said.

–Boundary_(ID_ZMFur6GnZQCQxQvvemMsDg)–

NEW SHADES IN SETTLEMENT OF ARMENIA-AZERBAIJANI CONFLICT – MINISTER

Trend News Agency
June 10 2008
Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, Baku, 10 June / Trend News corr S. Agayeva/ New shades
occurred in settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. "Now we
work over those provisions of the Madrid proposals on settlement of
the conflict which have not yet been coordinated," Azerbaijani Foreign
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said to journalists in Baku on 10 May.

The conflict between the two countries of the South Caucasus began
in 1988 due to Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since
1992, Armenian Armed Forces have occupied 20% of Azerbaijan including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and its seven surrounding districts. In
1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement at which
time the active hostilities ended. The Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk
Group ( Russia, France, and the US) are currently holding peaceful
negotiations.

"Those uncoordinated points are principal for us and we provided
opportunity to OSCE Minsk Group intermediaries to work with Armenian
side on their own," Minister said.

As to the last meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents
which took place in St Petersburg on 6 June, Mammadyarov said that
the meeting was of evaluation character. "We presented our positions
to each other and decided to give time to Minsk Group co-chairs to
find new ways to put forward sides’ positions," Minister said.

GRECO TO CONSIDER COMPLIANCE REPORT ON ARMENIA

armradio.am
09.06.2008 13:49

The plenary session of the Group of States against Corruption
(GRECO)will start in Strasbourg today and will continue through June
13th. First and Second Round Compliance Report on Armenia will be
presented at the session.

The head of the Armenian delegation at GRECO, Deputy Chief of the
State Tax Service adjunct to the Government of the Republic of Armenia
Arthur Osikyan told Armenpress that Armenia has mostly met the 24
commitments of the organization.

GRECO has appointed two independent experts as rapporteurs, who work
out final assessment report. In compliance with the statute of the
organization, the draft Compliance Report has been submitted to the
Armenian Government for the latter to present its own remarks.

All GRECO participating states pass the assessment round and receive
recommendations. Georgia has received 25 recommendations, Latvia –
28, Poland – 26, Romania – 28 and Slovakia – 36.

ARMECONOMBANK’S NET PROFIT INCREASES 20% IN 2007 AND TOTALS 1.893MLN AMD

ARKA
June 9, 2008

YEREVAN, June 9. /ARKA/. Net profit of Armenian Armeconombank in 2007
increased by 20% to total 1.893mln AMD against 1.571bln drams in 2006,
Board Chairman of Armeconombank David Sukiasyan stated at the annual
meeting of the bank’s shareholders.

Sukiasyan said 300mln drams of the profit will be paid to the
shareholders at 12% annual rate per share.

The assets of Armeconombank totalled 50.419bln AMD at the end of 2007
against 42,818bln drams estimated at the beginning of the year.

The credit portfolio grew by 38% to 27.967bln AMD from 20.189bln
drams recorded at the beginning of the year.

The securities showing increased by approximately 40% – from 6.5bln
AMD of 2006 to 8.9bln AMD in 2007. Liabilities increased 25% and
reached 41.925bln AMD against 35.937bln AMD in 2006.

The total capital increased by approximately 20% – 8.494bln AMD against
6.888bln AMD in 2006. The number of the bank’s customers grew by 45%
to reach 62,788.

In 2007, Moody’s Investors Service conferred on the bank D rank (for
financial stability) and Ba3 rank (for long-term deposits in national
and foreign currencies).

The bank signed a $2mln-worth loan agreement with the International
Financial Corporation to extend mortgage loans, as well as small and
medium-sized business loans. Under another agreement with KfW, the
bank received 103.5mln drams to extend mortgage loans. Under another
loan agreement signed with EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development) in 2007, the bank received $3mlm to provide loans
to micro and small businesses.

Among the bank’s special achievements in 2007, Sukiasyan also singled
out the agreement, under which the bank received a $15mln-worth
syndicated credit from seven international banks to extend loans to
small and medium-sized businesses.

The Armeconombank open joint-stock company was registered on August
26, 1991.

Over 75% of the bank’s shares belong to the main shareholders – EBRD
(25% + 1 share) and the Sukiasyan family – the founder of the SIL
concern (50.6%).

The capital of Armeconombank, according to the January 1, 2008 data,
totalled 8.6bln drams, with the assets estimated at 50.4bln AMD and the
net profit of 2007 estimated at 1.8bln AMD. The bank has 45 branches
in the territory of Armenia.

EXTRA ELECTIONS OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DEPUTY TO BE HELD AT ELECTORAL DISTRICT No 17 ON AUGUST 24

Noyan Tapan

Ju ne 6, 2008

YEREVAN, JUNE 6, NOYAN TAPAN. Extra elections of a National Assembly
deputy by the majoritarian electoral system will be held at electoral
district No. 17 on August 24. The RA Central Electoral Commission (CEC)
made this decision at the June 6 sitting based on the June 5 protocol
of the National Assembly on considering the powers of Henrik Abrahamian
as NA deputy in the indicated electoral district as terminated.

The powers of H. Abrahamian – brother of the chief of the RA
president’s staff Hovik Abrahamian were considered as terminated
because he violated the requirement of Article 65 Part 1 of the
RA Constitution. Under this article, a deputy may not engage in
entrepreneurial activity, hold a post in state or local government
body or commercial organization, nor engage in paid occupation,
except for scientific, educational or creative work.

By another decision, the CEC registered the deputy minister of
territorial adminsitration Bagrat Sargsian as NA deputy from the ARF
electoral list by the proportional electoral system. The decision was
made based on the NA protocol on considering the NA deputy powers
of Aramais Grigorian, who was appointed minister of agriculture,
as terminated.

SEYRAN OHANIAN: ARMENIA SHOULD NOT LAG BEHIND AZERBAIJAN

Noyan Tapan

Ju ne 9, 2008

YEREVAN, JUNE 9, NOYAN TAPAN. A military solution to the Nagorno
Karabakh problem has been already implemented, and today we should do
our best for problem’s peaceful settlement. RA Defence Minister Seyran
Ohanian gave assurance during his June 9 meeting with journalists. He
said that peaceful settlement is in the interests of both Armenian
and Azeri peoples.

According to the Minister, the idea of peaceful settlement is the basis
of today’s negotiations process, and during the meeting of Armenian
and Azeri Presidents held lately the sides confirmed readiness to
continue the negotiations with the current basis.

Touching upon Azeri Armed Forces’ intention to buy planes without
pilots, the RA Defence Minister did not exclude that with the help
of them the Azeri side wishes to examine the border zone of NKR
and RA. S. Ohanian stated that if the Azeri side buys such planes,
the Armenian side will also do the same, as "Armenia should not lag
behind Azerbaijan."