Author: Kalantarian Kevo

ARMENIAN C.BANK KEEPS REFINANCING RATE AT 8.00 PCT

Reuters
Aug 7 2012

Aug 7 (Reuters) – Armenia’s central bank kept its key refinancing
rate unchanged at 8.0 percent on Tuesday after data showed annual
inflation remained within the government’s target for the year.

The annual inflation rate stood at 2.3 percent in July, the central
bank said, higher than the 0.7 percent recorded in June, but lower
than the government’s target range of 2.5 percent to 5.5 percent.

(Reporting by Hasmik Lazarian; Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing
by Vladimir Soldatkin)

WHO WILL ARMENIAN GEORGIANS VOTE FOR?
Roza Hovhannisyan

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 12:55:48 – 08/08/2012

Armenian Georgians, who are inclined to vote for the authorities in
the upcoming parliamentary elections in Georgia, are not few. It
is not ruled out that the larger part of the Armenian community
of Georgia will vote for the ruling United National Movement party
since they see no alternative in the opposition, Arnold Stepanyan,
coordinator of the assembly of Armenians of Tbilisi told Lragir.am.

According to him, unlike the period Shevarnadze’s tenure, the current
authorities enhanced attention to the issues of the Armenian community,
though the problems increased too. In Javakhk the social-economic
condition has bettered, there is gas and electricity, roads are built,
but the educational and cultural issues are becoming tenser. After the
revolution, the number of Armenian schools has dropped and churches
are destroyed. The Georgian authorities don’t do any serious step
to solve the cultural issues. But at the same time, the Armenian
community sees no alternative in the opposition, so it is inclined
to vote for the power, he said.

According to Stepanyan, the ruling party has chances to win in Javakhk
only in case the large part of Armenians votes. There are also some
oppositional groups in Javakk.

In Tbilisi, Armenians supporting the opposition are not few either.

According to him, they are more informed so they have better
opportunities to make a choice.

While in Javakhk, no one knows anything except the program of the
government, plus, the oppositional activists are pressured, says
Stepanyan adding that the authorities have done everything to make
the Javakhk opposition silent.

Arnold Stepanyan says despite the optimism of the Armenian community,
there is no party in Georgia ready to solve the issue on the
preservation of the Armenian culture in Georgia. According to him,
Armenian Georgians are also to blame because they are not enough
active in the political life of the country.

According to the latest official data, the number of the Armenian
population in Georgia is 246 thousand, of which 100 thousand live
in Tbilisi.

LIFE QUALITY SURVEY RESULTS “SHAME”, ARMENIA’S EX-PREMIER SAYS

tert.am
08.08.12

Armenia’s ex-premier, ANC MP Hrant Bagratyan described the results of
the survey of quality of life in Armenia conducted by the Institute
for Political and Sociological Consulting (IPSC) as “shame”.

“Only a suicide will publish such figures in case when 99 thousand
people left Armenia in the first half of the year,” Hrant Bagratyan
said, speaking to Tert.am.

The survey showed 47.6% of the respondents were content with their
quality of life against 44.6% in 2010. It means 3% improvement in
the quality of life in Armenia last year as compared to 2010. While
Bagratyan claims the number of people emigrating from Armenia increased
by 11.1 percent.

“If 30 percent of people are satisfied with their life in Russia and
47.6 percent in Armenia, so why the Armenians are leaving for Russia,
let Russians come here,” Bagratyan said.

The ex-premier added that in reality, the authors of such “surveys” are
searching for warm corners through winning the hearts of authorities.

JACKSONVILLE ARMENIANS CONSTRUCTING NEW PARISH CHURCH, YOUNG MEMBERS PURSUE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS

ARMENPRESS
8 August, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, AUGUST 8, ARMENPRESS: The community here has grown to the
point that, last year, our mission parish purchased a new property,
which will serve as the epicenter of the Armenian-American community of
Jacksonville, reports Armenpress citing the office of Armenian-American
community of Jacksonville.

The new parish location will play an important role in the development
of our community. It will be a place where local Armenians will be able
to come together for worship, celebrations, and cultural and social
events. This will enable the dream of Armenians living in northern
Florida to manage their own institution, plan for bible studies,
Sunday school and more, to become reality. The Jacksonville community
has been working together to reform the building, as construction
work takes place every Sunday with the help of dedicated community
leaders. While church construction is in progress, the Armenian
community of Jacksonville, Florida gathers each month for the monthly
“Badarag,” or Divine Liturgy. The women’s choir is performing with
the participation of Janna Mosinyan, Elen Mosinyan, Olivia Arslanian,
Silva Baboyan, and male members Rafael Grigoryan, Aleksandr Shafiyev,
Nicolas Yedigarov and Erik Mirzoyev are all active participants of
the service as well.

This summer has been especially productive for the young members of
our community. Aleksandr Shafiyev recently represented the Armenian
Community of Jacksonville on his pilgrimage to the Holly Land.

Shafiyev was excited to discover that out of all the Christian nations,
Armenians are one of two that have a special quarter in Jerusalem to
practice their religion. “Now, that I have had an up-close experience
of the Armenian traditions, I am eager to go back to my roots,”
said Shafiyev. Hearing an Armenian who has never been to Armenia talk
about his heritage with such a great pride is a delightful feeling. On
July 11, 2012, The Eastern Diocese announced the recipients of the
Diocesan Academic Scholarship for 2012-13. The Armenian community
of Jacksonville is proud to announce that two of our students,
Rafael Gregoryan and Erik Mirzoyev, have earned the scholarship by
committing tremendous time and dedication to our community. Since 2008,
I have been an active member of the Armenian-American community of
Jacksonville, and it is evident that our local parish has been crucial
for the success and development of young Armenians here. As an Armenian
who arrived to United States only four years ago, I have found a little
Armenia, here in north Florida, thousands of miles away from home.

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TURQUIE : AU MOINS 115 SEPARATISTES KURDES TUES DEPUIS DEUX SEMAINES DANS UNE OFFENSIVE DE L’ARMEE
Stephane

armenews.com
mercredi 8 aout 2012

Au moins 115 separatistes kurdes ont ete tues au cours des deux
semaines ecoulees dans une vaste offensive de l’armee turque dans le
sud-est du pays, selon le bilan annonce dimanche par le ministre turc
de l’Interieur, Idris Naim Sahin.

Les insurges ont ete tues dans une offensive appuyee par des moyens
aeriens près de la ville de Semdinli, non loin de la frontière
irakienne, dans la partie turque du Kurdistan, selon le ministre.

L’offensive a commence le 22 juillet, a-t-il ajoute.

Tôt dimanche matin, des rebelles kurdes avaient attaque simultanement
trois postes militaires dans le sud-est du pays, près de la frontière
irakienne, provoquant des affrontements qui ont fait 22 morts,
d’après les autorites et des medias.

Les insurges ont notamment attaque un avant-poste situe près du
village de Gecimili, dans la province de Hakkari, a une vingtaine de
kilomètres de la frontière irakienne, selon un communique des services
du gouverneur de la province, Orhan Alimoglu.

Six soldats, deux gardes du village qui combattaient a leurs côtes,
et 14 rebelles kurdes ont ete tues dans les affrontements, a-t-on
precise de meme source. Au moins 15 soldats, un autre garde du village
et cinq civils ont aussi ete blesses dans l’attaque.

On ne faisait en revanche pas etat de victimes dans les attaques
contre les autres postes militaires, situes egalement dans la province
de Hakkari.

Les insurges disposent de bases dans le nord de l’Irak, d’où ils
lancent des attaques contre des cibles turques.

Selon la chaîne de television privee NTV, les rebelles ont tire sur
l’avant-poste avec des lance-roquettes et des fusils juste après
minuit.

L’armee a annonce l’envoi de renforts a Hakkari, lancant des
operations terrestres et aeriennes pour pourchasser les rebelles,
selon les services du gouverneur.

D’après la chaîne de television publique TRT, des helicoptères
d’attaque pilonnaient les routes empruntees par les insurges.

Les dirigeants turcs ont condamne l’attaque, affirmant que le
gouvernement etait determine a continuer sa lutte contre le Parti
des travailleurs des Kurdistan (PKK).

Le Premier ministre Recep Tayyip Erdogan a declare que l’attaque etait
une “agression lâche”. Il a aussi mis en garde les pays soupconnes
de soutenir le PKK. Il n’en a toutefois nomme aucun, et on ignorait
s’il faisait reference a la Syrie, en raison de la presence du PKK
dans ce pays.

3 WOMEN, 3 TRAGEDIES, 3 BOOKS
BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

asbarez
Monday, August 6th, 2012

It’s taken me a few years to finally read these three books which
struck me as related and worth sharing. Each is a powerful statement.

Each represents a time and situation in human history. Even though
they are based on events/situations that occurred (or were created)
a century, half a century, and a decade ago, it seems to me they can
all be tied to processes began in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Diana Apcar’s From the Book of One Thousand Tales deliciously conveys
the flavor of her times. The sixteen stories included in the book
retain the style and language of her time, which is what makes it so
interesting. We all grew up hearing about “Diana Apcar, the Republic
of Armenia’s ambassador to Japan”. Of course that was the first RoA,
not the current, third republic. But that was about it. It was a point
of pride that we’d managed to have an ambassador in faraway Japan,
and a woman at that, back in 1918. It turns out she did a lot more
than act as a diplomat. She helped escaping Armenians find a new,
post-Genocide, life. In the process, she became imbued with the sense
of what was going on in the homeland (her family hailing from Iran’s
Shah-Abbas-created-community of the Diaspora). Through allegory and
fictionalization, she conveys the tragedy that befell the nation
back then and the character of the people, Armenians and Turks, who
went through that hellish turbulence. We owe significant gratitude to
her family who dusted off Diana’s archival materials and discovered
these stories.

Silent Spring is credited with starting the modern environmental
movement in the U.S. Rachel Carson died shortly after she published
this book that described the tragedy of lifelessness caused by the
use of highly toxic herbicides and pesticides. Reading it after it was
republished on its 40th anniversary, I was astonished by how much was
known even before I was born, that I thought was “newer” knowledge,
say 1980s vintage. It was stunning and infuriating that we’ve known how
destructive certain chemicals can be and their insidious, persistent,
effects on ALL life, not just the weeds and bugs they’re “intended”
for. Who knows? The cancer that killed Carson may have been triggered
by exposure to the very toxins she wrote about.

Perhaps the most unnerving of this triad of books is the novel,
The Bastard of Istanbul. This book put its author, Elif Shafak,
on the literary map in Turkey. It also put her in the government’s
crosshairs. She was charged with violating the infamous Article 301
of Turkey’s Penal Code, for “denigrating Turkishness”. The whole
book speaks to the point she made when I heard her speaking at UCLA:
that Armenians are largely one with their history, and the Turks
are cut off from their history- except that which has happened
since 1923 and the founding of Ataturk’s republic. The book traces
the stories of three families, one Armenian, one Turkish, and one
“odar”/Armenian/Turkish. The three story lines (re)converge in
Constantinople after two had diverged from there as a result of the
Genocide. In the process, Shafak presents an Armenian family, with all
its foibles, eerily well. I was surprised (though I probably should
not have been) to see how similar the Turkish family’s interactions
were to ours. In reading this book, you’ll alternately chuckle, cry,
sneer, gasp, and just be generally very impressed. It’s no wonder the
original Turkish version was bestseller of the YEAR in Turkey. And
all this, the potential for bridging and progress among Armenians
and Turks is the outcome of another tragedy. The tragedy of a child
(the author) growing up fearing the life of her diplomat parents
would be taken by an Armenian, in the 1970s and 1980s, working to
break the wall of silence surrounding the Armenian Question. Who said
the actions of those times were unproductive?

But where’s the connection among these three lives/tragedies/books? It
strikes me that it all started with the industrial revolution of the
17th-18th centuries that swept Europe and North America. Naturally
armaments were included, leading to economic and military superiority
of the West over an already weakening Ottoman Empire. This led to
frantic efforts by sultan after sultan to modernize and catch up,
all the while being unable to stanch the collapse. Ultimately,
this desperation led to the racist Pan-Turanist ideology that bred
the Genocide. Meanwhile, industrialization spread to the world of
agriculture and its “chemicalization”, leading to Carson’s inspiring
treatise, hence the connection between the first two books. Obviously,
the connection to the third book is through the Genocide that created
the life conditions that led to the author’s inspiration, plus, the
coincident place of the diplomatic life in Apcar’s and Shafak’s lives.

You won’t regret buying and reading any one, or all three, of these
books. Do it.

FORMER AZERBAIJANI MILITARY OFFICIAL ACCUSES DEFENSE MINISTRY OF CORRUPTION

TURAN

BAKU. August 6, 2012: Most of the funds allocated to the Defense
Ministry were embezzled by a group of senior military officials,
said Rashad Mamedov, former head of the Financial Department of the
Military Commissariat of Azerbaijan in an interview with the Washington
correspondent of Turan. He served in the Ministry of Defense for
17 years; during the last two years (2010-2011), he worked in the
Commissariat of the Republic.

According to Mamedov, corruption in the army began in 1998, and has
been increasing since then. Thefts are carried out in different ways:
over-expenditure, money for dead souls, etc.

“It is impossible not to notice these thefts, it is enough to compare
the staffing of military units and funds allocated by them,” he said.

In 2008-2010 Rashad Mamedov controlled the financial affairs of the
Higher Military School named after Nakhchivanski.

“Suddenly” in 2010, he was appointed head of the pension group,
and later became the head of the finance department. “At first I was
surprised and was delighted, but after working for a while, I realized
that there was serious embezzlement and they want me to cover it up.

The embezzlement in 2010 is not the issue, the issue is the
embezzlement in previous years, approximately 500,000 – 600,000 manat,”
said Major Mamedov.

According to Mamedov, the Defense Ministry ignored his reports on
the theft of funds; moreover, it was made clear that if he did not
sit quietly, he would be punished.

“At some point I learned that some important documents were destroyed,
so I decided to retire from service on my own. Because it became
impossible, I decided to leave the country,” said Mamedov.

He is currently wanted by the Military Prosecutor Office on charges
of desertion. Mamedov said that another common form of corruption
is bribery in the district military enlistment offices in order to
delay military service or release from the army for health reasons. In
addition, bribes are given to attain a post in a particular region,
away from the front line. Bribes are increasing, so the most
expensive to obtain is permission to serve in Lankaran-Astara, Guba
and Baku-Qusar zones. To serve in the Internal Troops or Border Guard
Service is not cheap, Mamedov said.

However, for children of senior officials, their problems are often
solved without bribes. “The children of many officials are formal.

They spend half the year at home, appearing in parts of only for a
few hours, if there is an inspection,” said Mamedov. As for the fight
against corruption, such campaigns are short and are selective in
nature. Because of such inspections, the size of bribes increases,
said the major.

Rashad Mamedov said that another form of theft is the so-called
tenders for the purchase of food and other necessities for the army.

The winners of these tenders, as a rule, are firms and the companies
close to the leadership of the Defense Ministry. As a result, the food
and clothing of inferior quality appear in the army, which testifies
to the misuse of funds, said Major Mamedov.

Teymur Abdullayev, the deputy head of press service of Defense
Ministry of Azerbaijan, commented on Mamedov’s statements, calling them
“baseless fabrications.”

“A lawsuit has been filed against him on charges of desertion, and
it would be good to ask about him in the law enforcement agencies,”
said Abdullayev (Turan).

VILLAGE HEAD DIED DUE TO NEGLIGENCE OF MEDICAL STAFF

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 16:00:21 – 07/08/2012

Head of Noyakert village of Ararat Marz of Armenia Knyaz Sahakyan
died in Erebuni hospital due to the negligence of the medical staff.

After the operation Sahakyan underwent, the nurse made such an
injection which should not be done if the patient’s heart is operated.

The injection caused the patient’s death.

We have information that Knyaz Sahakyan’s relatives are going to
appeal.

VAHE AVETYAN’S MEMORY IN BELGIUM

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 13:28:05 – 07/08/2012

Armenian Student Association of Belgium “Hayasa” issued a statement in
connection with the 40th day of Vahe Avetyan’s death. The statement
runs that candle lighting and an informative meeting took place in
Belgium organized by Hayasa in the St. Mary Magdalene Armenian Church.

The Armenian Student Association says worried with the atmosphere
of fear, impunity and permissiveness in Armenia where the ordinary
citizen in not protected.

According to them, Vahe Avetyan’s tragedy is a challenge to the
healthy forces of the Armenian society which don’t stop fighting for
the supremacy of law and justice.

The Armenian students say they won’t be silent since silence is
equal to suicide. It is time to clear the country of the trash,
the statement runs.

STEPANAKERT READY TO HOST ARMENIAN SYRIANS

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 14:36:24 – 07/08/2012

The owner of Nairi Hotel of Stepanakert, Armenian Australian
businessmen Hakob Abulakyan said in an interview that he talked with
the Armenian and NKR ministries of foreign affairs and said ready to
accept the Armenian Syrians in his hotel. The businessman is ready
to provide the building to the Armenian Syrians if they pay only the
utility costs (gas, water, electricity).

The businessman is of Syrian origin, he is from Aleppo and has lived
in Syria until 35-years old.