RA PARLIAMENT APPROVES 2010 DRAFT BUDGET
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
10.12.2009 18:21 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian parliament approved Thursday the 2010
draft national budget. The document was adopted with a vote of 82 for,
16 against and 1 abstention, a PanARMENIAN.Net correspondent reports
from the RA National Assembly.
Opposition parties – ARF Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage – voted against
the document.
KARABAKH ISSUE BLOCKS THE REGION
Lragir.am
11/12/09
The Caucasian Journalists net () today held
a regular interview this time with the former NKR Foreign Minister
Arman Melikyan.
In answer to Lragir.am question whether the settlement of the
Karabakh issue came closer or went further in the context of the
latest developments in the Armenian and Turkish relations, Arman
Melikyan said that both the Armenian and Turkish and the Karabakh
processes are to be viewed in the global context of establishment
of new global order. According to him, the Karabakh issue has its
geopolitical concrete function. "Besides the fact that this question
became the reason of fight of neighboring countries, it also became
the tool for the solution of issues between superpowers. The Karabakh
issue blockades the region – this is its geopolitical function. The
appearance of such a factor as the Armenian and Turkish relations may
promote the blockade of the region because considering the specificity
of the Turkish-Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, it may become the
locomotive of the settlement of the Karabakh issue.
Now, the significance of the Armenian and Turkish relations is
sometimes being exaggerated. The Armenian and Turkish dialogue is
possible not to take place. I mean the level of practical steps and
decisions will follow the current propaganda level. To some extent,
the failure of the Armenian and Turkish normalization process may
become a signal that no decision on the Karabakh issue will be in
the nearest future. I think, within the upcoming half year, something
decisive from this point will happen", said Arman Melikyan.
ANC ORGANIZE A MARCH IN YEREVAN
PanARMENIAN.Net
10.12.2009 21:49 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian National Congress and the committee
on support of political prisoners organized a march dated to the
International Human Rights Day.
The march participants addressed a letter to UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights Navi Pillay and Secretary General of the Council of
Europe Thorbjorn Jagland and called on international structures to
take action to release prisoners sentenced for their political views
GOVERNMENT ALLOCATES AMD 79 MILLION TO MINISTRY OF SPORT
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
10.12.2009 19:11 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenian Government Thursday adopted decision on
allocating AMD 79 million 935 thousand to the Ministry of Sport and
Youth Affairs.
Allocated sums are intended for winners and prize holders of European
and World Championships and Cups.
NEXT MEETING BETWEEN ARMENIAN AND AZERI PRESIDENTS EXPECTED EARLY IN 2010
PanARMENIAN.Net
09.12.2009 19:00 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The next meeting between Armenian and Azeri
Presidents, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev, within Karabakh conflict
settlement frameworks, is expected early in 2010, Trend reported
citing OSCE MG Russian Co-Chair Yuri Merzlyakov.
"There’s little left till New Year, so I believe we won’t manage to
prepare presidential meeting before the end of December," Merzlyakov
noted, adding that this week, OSCE MG US, Russian and French Co-Chairs
plan to visit Azerbaijan and Armenia.
"The visit will cover discussions on reviewed Madrid Principles,"
Merzlyakov said.
The last Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting, positively assessed by the parties,
took place on November 22 in Munich.
NOTE TO MASS MEDIA
NKR Government Information and
Public Relations Department
December 07, 2009
With the view of accreditation of journalists the elucidation process
of the NKR Government activity for 2010 is begun.
For accreditation the heads of mass media must send corresponding
application to the Government information and public relations
department with the list of recommended journalists and official data
till December 18 of current year. With new names send photos, too.
For more information please call for: 94-44-53.
The delayed applications will not be taken on action.
TAIEX RESULTS SUMMARIZED IN YEREVAN
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
04.12.2009 13:06 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ An event titled "TAIEX 2009 and expectations for
2010" was held in Yerevan on December 3, bringing together government
officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations and
businessmen, reported the press office of RA Ministry of Economy.
Close cooperation with European specialists helps Armenia implement
TAIEX projects and use the experience for development of relevant
sectors.
TAIEX is the Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument
managed by the Directorate-General Enlargement of the European
Commission. TAIEX supports partner countries with regard to the
approximation, application and enforcement of EU legislation. It is
largely demand driven and facilitates the delivery of appropriate
tailor-made expertise to address issues at short notice.
HAVING ANNOUNCED ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH SUMERIANS, AZERBAIJAN ‘PRIVATIZED’ ARMENIA’S TERRITORY
ArmInfo
2009-12-03 10:49:00
ArmInfo. Having no own history, the national union, which is presently
called Azerbaijan by strange whim of Josif Stalin, has compensated
for this regrettable shortcoming by appropriating the neighbouring
states’ history.
However, having noted this deplorable fact once again, let us present
the data of research by specialists of the Moscow State University
recently published in the "New Region – Moscow" edition. According
to the opinion of the Russian historians, who analyzed 187 history
textbooks, issued in the former 12 republics of the Soviet Union,
the history distortion scales amazed the authors of this project,
after which the historians came to the conclusion that the history
was treated objectively only in Armenia and Belarus, while the other
republics treat the history from a nationalistic position.
According to the research, almost all the new-sprung "historians"
assign earliest origin to their peoples, as well as a special
world-scale mission. Moreover, sometimes this sounds like an anecdote,
as in case of notorious Azerbaijan, the "historians" of which prompt
to the younger generation of Azerbaijanis about their relationship
even with Sumerians. Moreover, the authors of such textbooks also
"privatize" foreign territories, since they in Azerbaijan claim that
Armenia was founded in its territory.
"Study of the school history textbooks, issued in the post-Soviet
republics, give us a surprise. We knew that the textbooks contain
nationalistic interpretation of the history. The surprise was that
in many cases the nationalism turned out to be a cover for the real
ideology of these states’ ruling elites", Assistant Professor of
the National History Department of MSU’s Historical Faculty Andrey
Shadrin said when commenting on the results of research.
Apparently, the research by MSU specialists again confirmed
a well-known fact: having no own history, Azerbaijan "privatizes"
it from almost all its neighbours. The most sorrowful fact is that
the first place in this list is held by Armenia, from which the
adventurous descendants of Heydar Aliyev captured almost everything
expect for the alphabet, though who knows.
A VOICE ACROSS THE TUNNEL
The Hindu
8898.ece
Dec 2 2009
India
Arundhati Roy talks about the issues highlighted in her latest book
of essays
Arundhati Roy’s "Listening to Grasshoppers" treads through dark
episodes in our recent past; it engages, prods, questions and compels
readers to see the stories from the other end of the spectrum. The
recently published collection of essays, written at different points
in time, treks through the Gujarat pogrom, the Parliament attack,
last year’s siege of Mumbai, the ills of a corporatised media, the
judiciary, dwells on the visit of former United States President
George W. Bush to India as well as the killing of Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink.
Many pieces in the book, published by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint
of Penguin Books, as Roy writes in her introduction, "were written
in anger, at moments when keeping quiet became harder than saying
something." She asserted it last week at the Jamia Millia Islamia,
where Roy read out from "Listening to Grasshoppers" and engaged in
a dialogue with faculty member Shohini Ghosh.
On what led Roy to her political writings, she said, "I don’t know,
often a kind of anger. I know I am being lied to by the corporate
press." She wrote, she added, "When it gets easier to write than not
to write."
Roy spoke about the subjects in the book and beyond — Kashmir,
Narmada, dams, their aftermath, Maoists and violence as a mode of
protest. The talk hinged on the thread running through the book,
"What have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What
happens when democracy has been used up?"
Hope vs reason
The book’s title is drawn from a piece of Armenian folklore about
grasshoppers unusually descending on the fields as if pre-empting
the genocide of more than a million Armenians in Turkey in 1915. On
invoking such a dark premonition, Roy said, "My book is dedicated to
those who have learned to divorce hope from reason."
She cited chapters from history where the fight has always been against
a more powerful one — in South Africa, slavery in the United States,
colonialism in India. Picking out an episode from her novel, "The
God of Small Things," where Chacko tells the story of an optimist
who rummages through a heap of horse dung hoping to find a pony,
Roy said, "There must be a pony somewhere," as an answer to all the
battles ahead.
"All of us who engage with very serious problems that face our society
are optimistic. Whether we win or not, this is the side we want to
be on….The legacy of political resistance is a complicated one,"
she said. The book, Roy said, is about the "systemic problems with
our democracy."
Though it was her political writings that invited discussion, the
writer whose ambition is to grow "into an irresponsible, giggly old
lady" also lingered on her identity as a fiction writer. "I pay a
lot of attention to how a story is told. You can move across genres
in order to tell a story how it needs to be told. To me fiction is
the simplest way of telling a complicated thing," she said.
She quoted Lennon as she looked back at her pile of non-fiction in
the past 10 years. "It happened while I was busy making other plans."
Arundhati Roy, Listening to Grasshoppers, political writings, The
God of Small Things
ARMENIAN CHURCHES IN MOLDOVA NEED PRIESTS
news.am
Dec 2 2009
Armenia
About 12 000 Armenians living in Moldova are basically engaged in
entrepot, said Chairwoman of the Armenian Community of Moldova Venera
Gasparyan in an interview with NEWS.am.
Presently, 22 schoolchildren receive education in two Armenian
schools in Chisinau. The third one is pending shortly 25 km away from
neighborhood center. "Armenia" cultural center was opened in Chisinau
recently, with three churches. According to Gasparyan, it would be
right to have a priest in each of them. To her mind, relations of
Armenian community with Moldavians keep on deepening. In addition,
despite no Armenian-language papers in Moldova, the periodical
"Moldova Noastra" has an Armenian insertion.
if each one had its pastor. On her opinion relations between Armenian
Community and Moldavians strengthen. Despite Armenian periodical
press in Moldova is not published, there is a loose leaf in periodical
in Armenian.