Author: Badalian Vardan

LET’S SPREAD A RUMOR THAT KARDASHIAN IS A TURKISH – NYT COLUMNIST

Tert.am
16:36 02.11.11

Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times has addressed
popular American-Armenian real time star Kim Kardashian’s divorce
with husband Kris Humpharies, criticizing her for spending too much
on marriage which lasted only 72 days.

“Kim Kardashian cld have spent her wedding money instead building
200 schools in poor countries,” Kristof said on his Twitter page. “On
behalf of Amernian-Americans, I apologize for Kim Kardashian. Let’s
start a rumor that she’s actually Turkish.”

According to The Atlantic Wire, Elmira Bayrasli, a writer for Forbes
responded to Kristof’s tweet by saying, “[Kristof] advocates for the
poor but is willing to malign an entire ethnic group (the Turks).

Disheartening & disappointing.”

But Kristof said in response that he had sought only to malign Kim,
not Turks.

“I didn’t malign Turks. I maligned Kim K and mocked Armenian-Turkish
tensions. No nastiness toward Turks,” he said.

10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE U.S. AMBASSADORS FUND FOR CULTURAL PRESERVATION CELEBRATED AT THE ARAM KHACHATURYAN HOUSE MUSEUM

armradio.am
02.11.2011 17:23

The U.S. Embassy in Armenia marked the 10th anniversary of the
U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) on November 2,
2011 at the Aram Khachaturyan House Museum in Yerevan.

During the celebration, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern
and Minister of Culture Hasmik Poghosyan took part in a ceremonial
signing for the restoration of the Garni Medieval Bridge, the 2011
AFCP initiative. The $110,000 U.S.-funded Garni Medieval Bridge
project is the largest AFCP project received by Armenia. Guests,
government officials, and Armenia’s past AFCP project recipients
recognized the role of the fund in preserving Armenia’s cultural
legacy and a shared world heritage.

Since its approval by the U.S. Congress in the fall of 2000, the U.S.

Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation has funded more than 640
cultural preservation projects in over 100 countries, representing
a contribution of nearly $26 million towards the preservation of
cultural heritage worldwide.

The Fund supports a wide range of projects that work to preserve
cultural heritage including the restoration of historic buildings,
assessment and conservation of museum collections, archaeological
site preservation, documentation of vanishing traditional craft
techniques, improved storage conditions for archives and manuscripts,
and documentation of indigenous languages.

In Armenia the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation has
supported the following projects:

~U 2005 – The Armenian National Film and Photo Archive: the creation
of climate controlled storage space for the Armenian film, photo,
and audio archives.

~U 2007 – The Tatev Scholarly Center in Syunik Region: the clearing
and preservation of the Center’s compound.

~U 2009 – Noratus Medieval Cemetery and Collection of Khachkars:
the mapping and cataloging of the site and fence installation.

~U 2010 – Documentation of Traditional Armenian Music and Dance
(in progress).

~U 2011 – Preservation of a Medieval Masonry Bridge in the Garni Gorge.

PROCEDURES FOR SME TO RENT REAL ESTATE WILL BE EASED FROM JANUARY 2012

ARKA
Oct 2, 2011

YEREVAN, October 2. / ARKA /. Procedures for small and medium-sized
businesses to rent real estate will be eased substantially from January
2012, the chairman of a non-governmental organization “Network to
protect business interests,” Gagik Poghosyan, said today.

“It is quite a complicated and expensive process now, but from the
1st of January 2012 small and medium-sized businesses will be able to
register the lease only via State Real Property Cadastre Committee,
and the requirement for notarization, which is mandatory now, will
be eliminated,” he said at the press conference on Wednesday after
a meeting of Council for the Development of SMEs.

According to Poghosyan, it is also important that from January 1 fees
for rent registration will be fixed.

VISITORS TO TELECOM.ARKA.AM CAN FOLLOW NEWS IN TWITTER’S MICROBLOG

ARKA
Nov 2, 2011

YEREVAN, November 2. / ARKA /. Visitors to telecom.arka Internet
portal from now on can follow also the news in Twitter’s microblog
at

Publications of ARKA news agency’s other projects can be found in
Twitter at – ;
–

ARKA news agency has been operating since May 1, 1996. It is
specialized in covering financial, economic and political information.

The professional credo of the agency is credibility and reliability.

Internet portal telecom.arka.am has been operating since November
2008 and over the three years of its activity has established itself
as one of the leading Armenian on-line publications covering the
telecommunications and high technology.

NO WAGE INCREASE FOR PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS NEXT YEAR: MINISTER

ARKA
Nov 2, 2011

YEREVAN, November 2. / ARKA /. Armenian finance minister Vache
Gabrielian said November 1 that although the draft budget for 2012
envisages an increase in social spending, however, public sector
wages will not be raised.

“We do not believe that in conditions of economic recovery it is
correct to rise wages, since that may impede economic growth”, he
said Tuesday during parliament hearings on 2012 draft budget.

According to the minister, in terms of overcoming poverty the main
factors are the level of pensions and social benefits, which are
earmarked to increase next year.

“Pensions in the average will amount to 31,500 drams , an increase
of about 3000 drams compared to the current 28.4 thousand drams,
and the size of social benefits will be increased by 2,700 drams and
reach eventually 29,500 drams,’ Gabrielian said.

As for the salaries of civil and public servants, the minister said
a package of social benefits will be adopted to improve their welfare
and the level of civil servants with low incomes.

A series of inspections conducted by the ministry of labour and
social affairs revealed that the number of senior citizens in Armenia
decreased by 6,000 people to 514,000 . The average pension in Armenia
is about 28,000 drams now.

The 2012 draft budget calls for 910 billion drams in revenues
and 1.042.5 trillion drams in spending. The amount of revenue is
projected to increase by 6.8% from this year’s budget (852.4 billion
drams). The spending is expected to grow by 41.5 billion drams. Some
86.1% of the spending (897.8 billion drams) is projected as current
expenditure; 13.9% or 144.7 billion drams are projected as net
non-financial expenditure. Some 46.2% are projected as social spending
(education, health, social security), 19.8% as defense, public order
and national security spending, 13.2% are planned for economic boost,
4.5% are projected to pay off Armenia’s state debt. Besides, 3.1% of
the blueprint budget is projected as official grants to communities
and 2% as government reserve fund.

FRENCH MAGAZINE OFFICES GUTTED AFTER PUTTING PROPHET MOHAMMED IMAGE ON COVER

PanARMENIAN.Net
November 2, 2011 – 14:57 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The offices of a satirical French magazine were
gutted on Wednesday, November 2, by what its editor said was a
firebomb, after it put an image of the Prophet Mohammed on its cover,
Reuters reports.

“The building is still standing. The problem is there’s nothing left
inside,” Stephane Charbonnier, editor of the weekly Charlie Hebdo,
told Europe 1 radio.

This week’s edition shows a cartoon of Mohammed and a speech bubble
with the words: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter.” It has
the headline “Charia Hebdo,” in a reference to Muslim sharia law,
and says Mohammed guest-edited the issue.

A police source stopped short of blaming the blaze at the Paris
offices on a firebomb and said it happened around 1 a.m. (midnight
GMT), adding that no one had been injured.

The magazine had received many emails containing insults and threats
in the past few days.

The magazine’s website on Wednesday appeared to have been hacked and
showed images of a mosque with the message “no god but allah.”

Many Muslims find any image of the Prophet Mohammed offensive. The
publication of a cartoon of Mohammed in a Danish newspaper in 2005
sparked angry protests across the Muslim world in which at least 50
people died.

ASHOT MANUCHARYAN: LATEST RESIGNATIONS IN ARMENIA DICTATED FROM OUTSIDE

arminfo
Wednesday, November 2, 14:44

The latest loud resignations in Armenia are dictated by external
forces, Ashot Manucharyan, a member of the Karabakh Committee,
ex-minister of the interior, adviser to the first president of Armenia
for national security, told ArmInfo.

Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan sent in his resignation lately. Alik
Sargsyan, Police Head, was dismissed on Tuesday. Afterwards, Speaker
Hovik Abrahamyan announced his intention to leave his post. The
parliamentary elections in Armenia are scheduled for May 2012 and
the presidential one – for Feb 2013.

“Generally, there is some logic in all these resignations i.e. the
political process in Armenia have entered a dynamic stage. I think
that transformation processes in Armenia are dictated by certain
forces from outside, since the key domestic political process is
still regulated from outside. The latest resignations are the result
of the toughening fight of external forces for Armenia,” he said.

As for the geopolitical context of the developments in Armenia,
Manucharyan said, dismantling of a part of the criminalized state
system closely connected with Russia comes to the foreground. For
Armenia, he said, it is positive, of course, and may lead to
dismantling of also the pro-western part of the Armenian criminalized
state system.

“Our country needs changes irrespective of how and why they happen.

It is just a start that will inevitably involve also the forces
that really represent the interests of our public, which, I hope,
will result in more fundamental changes,” Manucharyan said.

CLINTON, DAVUTOGLU TO FURTHER TALKS BETWEEN ARMENIAN AND AZERI LEADERS?

Tert.am
15:13 03.11.11

In 2012, meetings between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents
will spearheaded by the US secretary of state and the Turkish foreign
minister, Vesti.az reported, citing a video footage by Al Jazeera
TV channel.

“The scheduled meeting between the presidents may take place upon
the initiative of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. In case the meeting fails, Baku
will start thinking seriously over resolving the problem by the use
of force. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev is said to have discussed the
issue with Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan in the course of his recent visit
to Baku. The year 2012 is going to be decisive for the entire region,”
Al Jazeera said.

POLITICIAN COMPARED ARMENIA’S AUTHORITIES TO FANTASTIC BEAST

Tert.am
02.11.11

Armenia’s political Establishment must realize an end has come to the
‘three presidents’ gravitating center, Gurgen Arsenyan, Chairman
of the United Labor Party, said in an interview with the Urvagits
(Outline) program on the Kentron TV channel.

According to him, all political processes are “pivoting” on individuals
in Armenia. But the country should adopt the approaches incorporated
in the global political concept.

Arsenyan believes that the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) can be
considered a national conservative party, Prosperous Armenia Party
(PAP) a bourgeois-democratic one, and the Armenian National Congress
(ANC) is a national liberation force. They should participate in
elections each in its style.

“If authorities happen to embrace representatives of all groups,
it means we will have a deer with horns, fangs, wings and a trunk,”
Arsenyan said. That is the reason why European monitoring groups
regular visit Armenia and “slap us in the face.”

Over the past ten years, two companions-in-arms, Robert Kocharyan
and Serzh Sargsyan, have been ruling the country. The former has
played the role of country leader, and latter has been in charge of
domestic political “component.” “This model has had its effect on
Armenian statesmen and political figures,” Arsenyan said.

Since 2008, a political force following the principle of political
cooperation has been in the political arena. Many of Armenia’s
statesmen fail to realize that Serzh Sargsyan is not president
any more…

As regards Police Chief Alik Sargsyan’s resignation, Arsenyan is sure
that it was not a resignation. “The press has recently been strongly
critical of him,” he said.

KNESSET SPEAKER WORKING TOWARD GENOCIDE RECOGNITION

asbarez
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin

JERUSALEM-Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said Monday that he wanted
to convene an annual parliamentary session of the full Knesset to
mark the Armenian Genocide. “It is my duty as a Jew and Israeli to
recognize the tragedies of other peoples,” Rivlin said.

Rivlin added that diplomatic considerations, important as they may be,
should not deter us from recognizing a tragecy experienced by another
people, reported the Haaretz newspaper.

In recent years the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry
have applied heavy pressure to head off such sessions of the Knesset
out of concern that relations between Israel and Turkey would be
harmed. Turkey denies that it committed genocide against the Armenians.

Since 2008, the full Knesset has allowed the Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee to hold sessions that have been closed to the
media about the Armenian genocide. Last week, for the first time,
the full Knesset approved the convening of an open, public session
on the issue by the Education, Culture and Sports Committee, at the
request of Meretz Knesset member Zahava Gal-On. This represents a
complete change in approach on the issue.

As part of the Foreign Ministry’s attempt in recent years to block
pro-Armenian genocide commemorations, in 2007, ministry staff expressed
dissatisfaction with plans to hold a session in the Knesset plenum
on the issue. The prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, intervened
to have the session canceled.

In October of 2008, in an unprecedented move, the Knesset voted to
have a parliamentary committee convene on the Armenian genocide at
the initiative of then-Meretz chairman Haim Oron, paving the way for
the sessions in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Over the
past two years, however, after relations between Israel and Turkey
deteriorated, the Foreign Ministry s opposition to the issue abated,
though Rivlin s latest move was at his own initiative.

The recognition of the Genocide and issues related to commemorating
April 24 will be debated in coming weeks by the relevant committees of
the Knesset, said Armenian National Committee of Jerusalem chairman
Hagop Sevan, saying that the legislature has reconvened following a
long summer break.

Sevan also said that representatives of the ANC Jerusalem will be
holding meetings with Knesset members in coming days and weeks.