Author: Hovhannisian John

ARMENIAN PRESIDENT SERZH SARGSYAN RECEIVES CSTO SECRETARY GENERAL NIKOLAY BORDYUZHA

ARMENPRESS
Jan 13, 2009

YEREVAN, JANUARY 13, ARMENPRESS: President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan
received today Secretary General of Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO) Nikolay Bordyuzha.

Presidential press service told Armenpress that currently Armenia
is CSTO chairing country, and the chairman of the CSTO Council Serzh
Sargsyan discussed with Nikolay Bordyuzha issues connected with the
preparation of the regular summit of CSTO, formation of the agenda.

President of Armenia underscored the permanent improvement of the
activity of CSTO and noted that it will give an opportunity to confront
the contemporary challenges more effectively and according to Serzh
Sargsyan, the non-official meeting of the heads of CSTO member states
held December 2008 in Kazakhstan was directed towards it.

Considering the military-political partnership a core direction of
the activity of the CSTO, the leader of the country said that Armenia
will continue its efforts towards coordinating the joint work and
using the partnership potential more effectively.

During the meeting the sides also spoke about the issues the
organization is facing and ways of their solution.

IN THE U.S.

A1+
[06:47 pm] 13 January, 2009

Member of the PACE Armenia delegation, leader of "Heritage" party
Raffi Hovhannisyan will most probably not leave for Strasburg in late
January, told "A1+" Hovhannisyan’s press speaker Hovsep Khurshudyan.

According to Khurshudyan, Hovhannisyan refuses to participate in the
PACE session to be held on January 26 because none of his demands
have been fulfilled.

Let us recall that after the adoption of the resolution on Armenia
in June of last year, Raffi Hovhannisyan ceased to participate in
the PACE plenary sessions and monitoring until "Europe carries out
its values, rights and guidelines".

In fact, Raffi Hovhannisyan is currently in the U.S.

NA SPEAKER MEETS COE REPRESENTATIVE TO ARMENIA

armradio.am
14.01.2009 16:13

The President of Parliament of the Republic of Armenia, Hovik
Abrahamyan received the Special Representative of the Secretary
General of the Council of Europe to Armenia, Silvia Zehe.

During the meeting the parties discussed issues related to the
cooperation between the National Assembly and the Council of Europe
in 2009. Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan noted that there are a number of
programs to be implemented this year.

Mr. Abrahamyan referred to the visit of the co-rapporteurs of the
Monitoring Committee to Armenia, presenting the steps our country
has taken to meet the requirements of Resolutions 1609 and 1620.

OSCE PLANS MONITORING OVER AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN BORDER REGIONS

Trend News Agency
Jan 12 2009
Azerbaijan

The OSCE acting chairman’s personal representative will monitor the
line of contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the Tartar
and Agdara border regions for the first time this year on Jan. 14,
the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend News.

The monitoring will be held on the Azerbaijani side by the OSCE
acting chairman’s personal representative Imre Palatinus and Vladimir
Chountulov.

The monitoring will be held on the Armenian side by the OSCE acting
chairman’s field assistants Pieter Ki, Antal Herdich and Irji Aberli.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed
forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan
and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of
the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. – are currently
holding the peace negotiations.

Newsweek
Jan 10 2009

Trial Of The `Deep State’

Prosecutors in Turkey’s Ergenekon trial are rounding up top military leaders.

Grenville Byford
Jan 9, 2009

The Ergenekon "Gang," Turkish prosecutors say, schemed to remove the
country’s governing AK Party by promoting public chaos and,
subsequently, a military coup. Among their chosen methods:
murder. Over the past year prosecutors have arrested or put on trial
two retired four-star generals and 84 other people. On Wednesday, they
arrested 37 more, including two more retired four-stars. They also
rounded up nine serving officers, which required the permission of the
General Staff. Wednesday’s raids led police to a large cache of arms
and explosives. Even in Turkey, where coup rumors flourish and
generals regularly make political statements, this is sensational
stuff.

Gen. Ilker Basbug, chief of the General Staff, met with the commanders
of the Army, Air Force and Jandarma for six hours on Wednesday. Their
wives were dispatched to call on the wives of arrested former
generals. The following day, Basbug requested a meeting with Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and went on to see President Abdullah
Gul. Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition party CHP, claimed
again that the Ergenekon probe is a government attempt to silence
opposition. That can hardly be true because in Turkey, prosecutors are
not supervised by the government. That job belongs to the Supreme
Council of Judges and Prosecutors, a body composed of five senior
judges, a civil servant and the justice minister. Rumors are now
circulating that the council is under pressure to investigate the
Ergenekon prosecutor. This would not be a first. In 2006 it disbarred
a prosecutor in eastern Turkey who was investigating whether anyone
was behind two Jandarma NCOs convicted of bombing a bookstore in
Semdinli and killing a man.

Amid all this activity, what is actually going on? Ergenekon in a
broad sense is a "political trial," though not in the crude way Baykal
means. The guns and explosives are all too real. So too are the
murders allegedly instigated by those in the dock. They stand accused,
for example, of procuring the murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
last year and a senior judge in 2006. This was dressed up as an
Islamist crime, and blame was attached to the (allegedly Islamist) AK
Party for inspiring such things. The evidence against some of the
accused is persuasive. This trial is not something cooked up by the
government. To be sure, some of those who’ve been arrested may be
guilty of nothing more than expressing their wish to the wrong people
that the AK Party would vanish. Even if the prosecution is holding
some innocents, though, it doesn’t mean there is no fire beneath the
smoke. That some of those arrested have been held for six months
without charge is not a scandal in Turkey as it would be in the United
States; Turkish criminal procedure, for better or worse, allows
it. Rarely, though, are retired generals treated thus.

What makes the trial political is something Turks call the "deep
state." This, almost every Turk believes, exercises real power in
their country alongside, and usually in opposition to, Turkey’s duly
elected governments. Actually, however, there are two deep states: a
clean one and a dirty one. The former comprises many members of
Turkey’s secular elite. These are, on the whole, decent
people’generals, bureaucrats, judges, businessmen and
academics. Commonly referred to as "Kemalists," they see themselves as
the guardians of the secular republic. In intent they follow a slogan
from Ataturk’s time: government "for the people, despite the people."
And because they believe that AK Party threatens secularism, they have
no respect for its democratic mandate’nor do they have any serious
evidence. I doubt Mustafa Kemal Ataturk would be a Kemalist today. "We
are going," he said "to advance our country to the level of the most
civilized and prosperous countries." In modern parlance, he wanted
Turkey to join the First World, with all that implies about freedom
and democracy. The dirty deep state is the evil twin. It kills people,
among other things. The political question is whether the clean deep
state will protect the dirty one to ensure its own survival. Or
whether, indeed, it should survive at all. Its fate rests with three
key players: the judiciary, the generals and the AK Party.

The judiciary can offer protection to the deep state by replacing the
prosecutor with a more compliant one, as it did in the Semdinli
case. They might also quash some or all convictions on appeal. There
has been a blizzard of comment alleging technical infractions by
Ergenekon prosecutors. Certainly the Constitutional Court has shown
little intellectual integrity in the past. It tried to prevent
Abdullah Gul from becoming president, and then, frustrated by the AK
Party’s overwhelming victory in the 2007 election, agreed to hear the
closure case against AK in 2008. (The court blinked, though, when
confronted with the prospect of removing a democratically elected
government with solid popular support.) On the other hand, not all
judges are willing to twist the law for political ends, especially in
public. And they must be uncomfortably aware of that dead senior
judge.

The generals also got a bloody nose in 2007. Their e-memorandum
threatening a coup if Gul became president merely resulted in an
election that they lost. They were notably silent during last year’s
closure case. What did they talk about at their Wednesday meeting? Did
they wonder what their former colleagues had been playing at’or seek
ways to protect them, and therefore themselves? Everyone accepts the
generals are the core of the clean deep state. The questions are: Do
they know the dirty one exists? Do they just look the other way? Or
are they actively involved?

Although the AK Party had nothing to do with starting the Ergenekon
probe, it would surely like to see the back of both deep states (as
would the European Union). The lesson Erdogan and his colleagues seem
to have taken from 2007 and 2008 is that to remain in power, not only
do they have to win elections, but they also must do so
overwhelmingly. This is why they are hesitant in pushing for the
further reforms needed for EU membership. They cannot afford to offend
their nationalist supporters, and must hope their liberal ones will
not desert them. They are still more liberal than any alternative. The
same applies to Erdogan’s recent dealings with the Kurds. He is tough
on PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) terror to please the nationalists,
but holds out economic development to the southeast. That Kurds tend
to be conservative and religious helps, too. The economic situation,
by contrast, makes this balancing act harder.

Strangely enough, the people who will ultimately decide are the
Turkish electorate, albeit indirectly. Local elections are coming up
in March and are generally a referendum on government performance. If
the voters stick with the AK Party, the Ergenekon investigation will
probably continue. The dirty deep state will be dealt a severe blow
and the clean one will suffer by association. If AK does poorly,
expect the whole thing to be swept under the rug.

SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR OF OSCE PA ON NAGORNO KARABAKH ISSUE G. LENMARKER PLANNING TO VISIT THE REGION FEBRUARY 9

ARMENPRESS
Jan 8, 2009

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, ARMENPRESS: Special rapporteur of OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly on Nagorno Karabakh issue Goran Lenmarker
plans to visit the conflict region February 9.

Senior consultant of the international department of Swiss parliament
Ann-Sofi Lindenbaum told Armenpress that G. Lenmarker will be in
Armenia and Azerbaijan and will discuss issues on South Caucasian
development and Karabakh conflict regulation.

G. Lenmarker is expected to present an oral report on the results of
his visit and the present stage of Karabakh conflict regulation during
the winter session of OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in late February.

DEVELOPMENT OF BASIN MANAGEMENT PLANS TO START IN ARMENIA THIS YEAR

Noyan Tapan

Jan 8, 2008

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. 315 water use permissions were granted
in Armenia in 2008, including 101 permissions to natural persons and
214 ones to legal entities.

According to the RA Ministry of Nature Protection, the development
of basin management plans will start in the country this year. There
are currently 5 units on territorial management of basins in Armenia.

ADDRESS OF THE CATHOLICOS OF ALL ARMENIANS ON CHRISTMAS

armradio.am
06.01.2009 17:26

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"A new king is born in Bethlehem Bless (Him) sons of mankind, For He
became incarnate for us."

Armenian Church Hymnal

Dear pious faithful in Armenia, Artsakh and the Dispersion, With
songs of praise and prayers of thanksgiving we celebrate the Feast
of the Holy Nativity and Theophany of our Lord Jesus Christ today,
conveying the good news of the incarnation of God and the revelation
of the Savior.

The prayerful fathers of our Church called the Holy Nativity a
"mystery great and wondrous". They named it as such, since it is
impossible to describe how the uncontainable, the eternal and the
boundless was contained in a manger; how the Word and Wisdom of God
was born in a stable of incognizant animals. It remains beyond the
comprehension of the human mind how the Only Begotten Son of God –
the Creator’s Light of Glory – became a created being, and the Lord
took on the form of the servant.

We do not know how this great miracle of God came to pass nor can
it be explained; however we do know the reason for the miracle,
"For He became incarnate for us". Truly, these few words explain the
Almighty’s providential will, guiding and directing the Holy Nativity
and Theophany.

God is Lord and Creator "of heaven and earth, of things visible and
invisible". His glory is shown by His temporal and spiritual creations
– the universe, mankind and the angels. The God of all has no need for
body nor time. The Savior seated on the eternal throne of God had no
need to descend from the heights of heaven to this sinful earth. The
Prince of Peace had no need for persecution, torture, and crucifixion;
there was no need for a crown of thorns, death, or resurrection. But
all of this the Savior took upon Himself for our sake. The Love of
God took on flesh to liberate us from the power of sin and death,
and to make us worthy of the blessedness of eternal life. "In this
is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the expiation for our sins." I John 4:10. God Whom we lovingly
worship does not desire our death or condemnation, and for that reason
He Himself came to live within us. He came to transform our lives,
to grant us the hope of salvation and eternal life.

Indeed, our songs of praise and giving of thanks have no value,
if within the depths of our soul we do not have the unshaken faith
that God "became incarnate for us". Our prayers will not be heard,
if God does not abide in the very center of our existence.

Holy Nativity marks the beginning of reconciliation between God and
man; it is the invitation to inherit eternal life and the exhortation
to remain under the grace of salvation with Jesus Christ. God revealed
Himself to us in His fullness, so that we do not remain apart from that
fullness of divine and human perfection, and so that our lives hoping
for salvation become satiated with that fullness of perfection. We
believe that God is one. Is unity not essential for us? We preach
that God is love. Do we not feel the need for love? Can we live
without love? Can we create without love? God, to Whom we constantly
pray, is holy, righteous and benevolent. Let us examine our hearts –
do we not feel the need for holiness? Let us examine our actions –
are they always truthful, good and benevolent? We declare that God is
just. Do we not long for justice every hour of every day? We confess
that God is our Father; that He is merciful, the unending source of
peace and the grantor of goodness. Is peace not our daily appeal and
wish? Does the earth not yearn for mercy and care every day? He who
recognizes God in this manner, cannot live without Him; cannot live
without binding his own hope for salvation with the faith of the
incarnation of the Son of God; and cannot live without aspiring to
always be under His blessings and graces.

The world loses its path without the light from the star of Bethlehem.

Without Christ, the world will always be in distress, troubled and
lacking morality. Material progress alone will not secure the avoida
nce of crisis situations, the prevention of conflicts and discord,
or the elimination of disasters and poverty. The disregard of
spiritual values and the tendencies of secularization unequivocally
damage sacred traditions, distort moral concepts and understanding,
as well as the inner-world of man, causing him to be indifferent to
and alienated from God, from himself and the world. It is God who
sustains the human soul. Human life shall be repaired by the soul that
loves God and the power of faith, so that there is no blurring of the
boundaries between philanthropy and egoism, so that there is no failure
to differentiate between the just and the unjust, truth and falsehood,
good and evil. Many issues shall be decided, many disparities shall be
leveled and wounds shall be healed by the discerning comprehension and
belief that the Son of God became man for our sake. This example of
perfect love is light and direction for our lives and a commission
to work with love. "Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and
beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience,
forbearing one another; and if one has a complaint against another,
forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must
forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything
together in perfect harmony." Colossians 3:12-14.

Dear faithful Armenians, on the "great and wondrous" feast of the Holy
Nativity and Theopha ny, our Church commemorates the holy baptism
of Jesus Christ with the Blessing of the Waters service, so that
through the graces of Christ’s revelation to mankind, the blessed
water be distributed throughout our families, increasing the love and
blessings of God in our lives. Through our baptism, we are adopted by
God. Through our baptism, we are one – regardless of where we may be;
we are the sons and daughters of our Holy Apostolic Church, our nation
and our homeland. Let us live and work with this sense of unity and
love towards one another, so that we may be empowered to overcome all
difficulties and challenges, to progress toward the achievement of our
hopes and aims. As the oldest Christian nation and as God’s people, let
us bring our participation with our God-pleasing lives in the creation
of a peaceful and prosperous world – a world filled with solidarity
and happiness. Today our Lord and Savior comes to live within our
hearts and to renew us with His grace. Let us receive the Lord in our
souls, be reinforced with faith, and remain loyal to our spiritual
inheritance and Christian values. With reliance on our Lord and Savior
and the steadfast hope and strength granted from Him, let us make our
lives flourishing in all aspects, continue to build our native land,
and care and strive for the manifestation of all national aspirations
and the rights of our people in Artsakh. May our virtuous works and
benevolent souls filled with love towards one another always shine
brightly in our lives, whereby we shall bear witness that we love God.

It is with these emotions, prayers of joy and warm Pontifical love,
from the cradle of our faith – the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin
– that we greet all sons and daughters of our people in Armenia,
Artsakh and the Diaspora.

With fraternal love in Christ, we greet the incumbents of the
hierarchal sees of our Holy Apostolic Church: His Holiness Aram I,
Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia; His Beatitude Torkom
Manoogian, Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem; His Beatitude Mesrob
Mutafyan, Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople; and the oath-bound
ranks of our clergy.

We extend our Pontifical blessings and greetings to the President
of the Republic of Armenia, Serzh Sargsian; the President of the
Republic of Nagorno Karabagh, Bako Sahakian; all state officials of
the Armenians, and leaders and representatives of diplomatic missions
accredited to Armenia.

On this grace-renewing day of the Holy Nativity, let us offer
thanksgiving with prayers to God in heaven for the blessings and
consolation He grants us; for the successes and achievements in our
ecclesiastical and national life, and ask that He care for us with
His boundless love as is His will.

May He make us worthy to remain steadfast on His path, reinforce
us, illuminate us and make His saving grace shine within us, today
and always.

"Bless (Him) sons of mankind, for He became incarnate for us."

Christ is Born and Revealed Great Tidings to you and us.

Art Daily
Jan 7 2009

Art Institute Celebrates the Life and Work of Master Photographer
Yousof Karsh

CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago has organized an exhibition
that focuses on Yousuf Karsh–the man responsible for some of the 20th
century’s most famous photographic portraits of celebrities and public
figures. Yousuf Karsh: Regarding Heroes–on view January 22-April 26,
2009 –highlights the remarkable depth, skill, and poignancy with
which Karsh captured such luminaries as Winston Churchill, Audrey
Hepburn, Ernest Hemingway, Georgia O’Keeffe, Albert Einstein,
Christian Dior, and Marian Anderson. To mark the centenary of his
birth, this retrospective displays Karsh’s best portrait subjects in
the prints he himself preferred. The 100 photographs in the exhibition
are drawn from a set of more than 200 master prints given to the Art
Institute as a promised gift by his widow, Estrellita Karsh.

Yousuf Karsh arrived in Canada as a teenage refugee, escaping the
genocide in Turkish Armenia. He was trained by his uncle–and later
by John Garo in Boston–as a professional portrait photographer. At
first this meant pleasing his sitters, rather than the editors and
publishers who, with their staff photographers, kept an eye on
fashion and celebrity. In 1941, after nine years as a struggling
young photographer in Ottawa, Karsh captured the unforgettable image
of Winston Churchill that became known as "the roaring lion." His
name and his career were made almost instantly. Despite his success,
Karsh still lived in a period of uncertainty, especially concerning
the fate of European democracies and indeed the future of Western
civilization. It was in that period that Karsh captured, like no
other photographer, the faces of the people who defined the age. It
is this notion of heroism and its stylistic rendition that the
exhibition Regarding Heroes examines and illuminates.

Yousuf Karsh’s lifelong ambition was to search for a form within a
face, one that could become a symbol for a life that was purposeful,
meaningful, and generally virtuous. "I speak with some experience when
I say that I have rarely left the company of accomplished men and
women without feeling that they had in them real sincerity,
integrity–yes, and sometimes vanity of course–and always a sense of
high purpose." In his 60-year career, Karsh seldom wavered from this
goal, even when fame and fortune came his way. Neither did he discard
his trademark variations in lighting style that he perfected in the
late 1940s while other fashions came and went. Unchanging, too, was
his genius at capturing the revealing and ephemeral psychological
expressions, those fleeting disclosures of character and purpose for
which his famous sitters trusted him.

Karsh was the preferred photographer of kings, queens, princes,
presidents, prime ministers, generals, and other political figures
because he rendered them with an unbiased and unfailing regard for
their dignity. Karsh and the musicians, artists, writers, scientists,
actors, and intellectuals he photographed shared a parallel ambition:
to create works of art of lasting value. In making what now seem
singular, monumental statements honoring those he considered his
contemporary heroes, he stood alone in his field, so much so that it
could be argued he was the last of his kind.

Yousuf Karsh: Regarding Heroes is organized by the Art Institute of
Chicago. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated
catalogue, written by exhibition curator David Travis, former Curator
of Photography at the Art Institute, and issued by Boston publisher
David R. Godine. The 192-page book traces Karsh’s artistic development
and reassesses his place in the history of photography. It will be
available in January 2009 and can be purchased at the Art Institute’s
Museum Shop.

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ARMENIAN CENTRAL BANK TO EARMARK 5 BILLION DRAMS FOR MORTGAGE FUND’S ESTABLISHMENT

ARKA
Dec 19, 2008

YEREVAN, December 29. /ARKA/. The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) plans
to earmark 5bln drams for the establishment of the first mortgage
fund in the country in 2009, CBA Chairman Arthur Javadyan said today
at a reception in the Central Bank.

Establishment of mortgage funds and companies is among Armenia’s
short-term objectives, the CBA chairman said, pointing out elaboration
of a relevant concept. "Moreover, the Central Bank will assign 5bln
drams from its capital expenditures for the establishment of the
first mortgage fund in 2009," he added.

Twenty-two banks with 367 branches operated in Armenia as of September
30, 2008. Total assets and capital of Armenia’s banks amounted to
954.1bln drams and 214.9bln drams respectively, with their liabilities
reaching 739.2bln drams.

Total assets of local bank are around 27% of the country’s GDP,
with crediting of economy reaching 617.5bln drams in end-2008,
compared to 434.5bln drams earlier this year. Consumer loans totaled
172.5bln drams, with mortgage loans amounting to 81bln drams.($1-
308.01 drams).