Author: Nadirian Emma

UEFA TO TACKLE ISSUE CONNECTED WITH FOOTBALL MATCHES TO BE HELD BETWEEN AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA WITHIN EUROPE CUP QUALIFICATIONS 2008 IN JUNE, 2007

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
April 18 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku/ Trend , corr. Z. Safarov/ The place where the
qualification football matches within the Europe Cup Qualifications
2008 is expected to be determined by UEFA (United European Football
Asociation) in June, 2007, Trend reports.

It was preliminarily proposed that this issue would be tackled during
the meeting of the Executive Committee of UEFA held in Cardiff.

However, EUFA made up a decision to view the situation with the
two matches to be held between Azerbaijani and Armenian Football
Teams later. The European Football Association once more decided
to thoroughly analyze the situation by taking into consideration
tensions and the state of war between the two countries and finally
take a concrete decision, but later. Therefore, the meeting of the
Executive Committee of UEFA to be held in June, 2007 is expected to
become a deciding moment that put an end to this issue.

Notably, AFFA (Association of Football Federation of Azerbaijan)
backs holding the two football matches on neutral football fields,
while the Armenian party still insists on holding the both matches
in Baku and Yerevan.

GEORGIA WILL RECEIVE GAS FROM AZERBAIJAN

arminfo
2007-04-17 11:12:00

Georgian mass media inform that for non-stop gas supply the Georgian
Oil and Gas Corporation made a contract with consortium "Shakh-Deniz"
on 4.000.000 sq/m gas delivery to Georgia daily instead of 1.000.000,
president of the Corporation Aleko Khetaguri said.

He also added that stemming from an agreement with the Azerbaijani
party, despite the rehabilitating work at the main gas pipeline
Georgia will receive natural gas from Azerbaijan without any problem.

At the same time he said that on 18 April Gazprom starts repairing
work at the North-South gas pipeline, for this reason import of the
Russian gas to Georgia and Armenia will stop temporarily. Russian gas
supply stopped at 6:00 AM on 17 April and will be restored in two days.

"ARMBUSINESSBANK" LAUNCHED FOREIGN CURRENCY AUTOMATIC EXCHANGE MACHINE

MediaMax Agency, Armenia
April 17 2007

Yerevan, April 17 /Mediamax/. "Armbusinessbank" launched today the
"Servibanco" foreign currency automatic exchange machine at the
entrance to the Bank’s "Kentron" branch at 20 Mashtots Avenue, Yerevan.

As Mediamax was told today in the press service of "Armbusinessbank",
the machine functions on a twenty-four hour basis effecting exchange
operations of USD dollars, EUR, British pounds, Swiss francs, Russian
rubles and Ukrainian hryvnia into Armenian drams.

"Armbusinessbank" plans to launch 9 more machines in the second quarter
of 2007, and make the overall number of them 20 by the end of the year.

ARMENIANS DON’T WANT NATO, DO WANT EU
By M. Alkhazashvili
Translated by Diana Dundua

The Messenger, Georgia
April 17 2007

According to research conducted by the research centre Intermedia,
approximately 39 percent of polled Armenians are against NATO
membership compared to the 29 percent in favour.

64 percent polled say they do not want Armenia to leave the CIS, while
11 support withdrawal. The vast majority of respondents, 71 percent,
want Armenia to integrate into the EU.

83 percent of the people polled think it’s important to have good
relationships with Russia, 55 percent think good relations are needed
with the US and 5 percent say relations with Turkey are significant.

16 percent of the polled respondents believe Russia supports Azerbaijan
in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, 49 percent believe the opposite.

As regards the May 12 parliamentary elections, 77 percent polled say
Armenia needs powerful leadership that will establish order in the
country, reports the news agency Regnum.

FOUR ARMENIAN FILMS TO BE SHOWN AT SIRACUSA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Noyan Tapan
Apr 17 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 17, NOYAN TAPAN. Films of four Armenian directors will
be shown on April 17-23 at the Siracusa International Festival in New
York. The Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed about it by the office
of the "Golden Apricot" (Voske Tsiran) international film festival.

Levon Grigorian’s "Memories about Sayat Nova," Haroutiun Khachatrian’s
"Poet’s Return," French Armenian director Robert Gedikian’s "Return to
Armenia" films and young director Artur Mikayelian’s "The Unemployed"
animation film to be presented in Siracusa participated in the
"Armenian Panorama" competition program of the "Golden Apricot"
international film festival in 2006.

Haroutiun Khachatrian, the Director of the "Golden Apricot"
international film festival, producer left for New York to participate
in the festival.

KARABAKH CONFLICT RESOLUTION POSSIBLE THROUGH PEACEFUL TALKS, PABRIKS SAYS

PanARMENIAN.Net
16.04.2007 16:38 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Latvia strongly supports the existing activities
of the OSCE and the Minsk Group.

It is clear that a sustainable resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict can only be achieved through dialogue and peaceful
negotiations," Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks said.

When commenting on Lithuania’s initiatives on cooperation of the
Baltic countries and South Caucasus in 3+3 format, Mr Pabriks said,
"The context of regional cooperation is a very important issue. The
Baltic States have achieved many goals only by means of our trilateral
coordination and joint efforts.

Cooperation between the Baltic States and the South Caucasus is
an existing reality. I believe the institutionalization of our
cooperation is not a main goal. We should continue and deepen our
existing cooperation and mechanism of consultations between the two
regions in mutually essential spheres and international issues,"
Trend reports.

Iran soon to accept bids for two more nuclear power plants

15:04 | 15/ 04/ 2007

TEHRAN, April 15 (RIA Novosti) – Iran will soon announce a tender for
the construction of two more nuclear power plants in the south of the
Islamic Republic, an official of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said
Sunday.

Ahmad Fayazbakhsh said the power plants will each have a capacity of
1,000 to 1,600 megawatts and will be built at Bushehr where Russia is
completing the construction of Iran’s first nuclear power plant.

Iran has been at the center of international concerns since January
2006 over its nuclear program, which some countries, particularly the
United States, suspect is geared toward nuclear weapons development.
Tehran has consistently denied the claims, saying it needs nuclear
power for civilian purposes.

Fayazbakhsh said some major European and Asian contractors have already
displayed interest in the construction of NPPs.

Fayazbakhsh also said the two nuclear power plants will cost about
$1.4-1.8 billion and their construction will last about 9-11 years.

HEAD OF OSCE PA OBSERVER MISSION UNDERLINES IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL TRUST
IN ELECTORAL PROCESS

YEREVAN, APRIL 14, NOYAN TAPAN. Receiving on April 13 Vice President
of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Head of the OSCE PA observer
mission of the parliamentary elections in Armenia Tone Tingsgard, the
Speaker of the RA National Assembly Tigran Torosian attached
importance to the OSCE PA mission’s assistance in the upcoming
parliamentary elections. In anticipation of close cooperation, he said
that a working group composed of representatives of 5 factions and 2
deputy groups was set up at the National Assembly (only the "Orinats
Yerkir" faction declined, saying that the results of the working
group’s activities are obscure). Starting from April 16, the
secretariat of the group is ready to record all shortcomings noticed
by the observer missions – in order to inform the working group about
these shortcoming and to eliminate them rapidly.

Tone Tingsgard formulated the goal of observer mission of thier
organization, as well as of other international organizations as
assistance for Armenian elections to be in line with international
standards. Noting that a good Electoral Code has been created, he
underlined the importance of the society’s trust in electoral process.

According to the RA National Assembly PR Department, on the same day
T. Torosian also received the delegation of the temporary commission
on observation of the parliamentary elections in Armenia (head – Leo
Platvoet). Special Representative of the Council of Europe
Secretary-General Bojana Urumova was present at the meeting.

Underlining the importance of social trust in the electoral system and
political parties, Leo Platvoet noted that it will be seen definitely
on the election day. Agreeing that the real and full picture will
become clear at the elections, T. Torosian at the same time said that
according to surveys, 60-70% of voters are willing to go to elections,
while their actual number may be greater.

In the words of the NA speaker, it is important that the monitoring
conducted with the assistance of the CE correspond to reality. In this
connection T. Torosian spoke about the conclusion of one of the
organizations conducting the monitoring, according to which, much TV
time has been allocated to the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) – the
coverage of official activities of the NA speaker and the prime
minister as RPA members, as well as reports on the death and funeral
of the former prime minister Andranik Margarian have been included. In
order to provide reliable information to the public, the NA speaker
considered it necessary to specify the monitoring standards and avoid
biased study.

During the meeting, the sides discussed the problem of traiffs for
paid political advertising: L. Platvoet expressed an opinion that
these prices are high compared with the standard of living, while
T. Torosian said that these tariffs have remained the same since the
2003 elections.

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
April 13, 2007 Friday

Georgia’s ethnic Armenians demand regional language status for
Armenian

About 300 residents of the southern Georgian town of Akhalkalaki held
a meeting on the town’s main square Friday with a demand to declare
Armenian the regional language in Georgia’s province of
Samtskhe-Javakheti.

Participants in the meeting, convened by the local ethnic Armenian
organizations Javakh and Virk, said a considerable part of Armenians
living in the province either do not speak the Georgian language at
all or have a poor command of it.

The meeting passed a resolution with a proposal to Georgian
parliament and president give the Armenian communities living in the
Akhalkalaki and Ninotsminda districts the right to use Armenian as
the language for documentation formalities in local agencies of
power.

Member of parliament Van Baiburt, who is also a deputy chairman of
the public organization called the Union of Georgia’s Armenians, made
a comment on this demand.

“There’s no talking about any kind of infringement on the Armenians’
language rights in Samtskhe-Javakheti and in Georgia on the whole,”
Baiburt said. “A total of five MPs are Armenians, several Armenian
newspapers are published in Georgia, the country has 170 schools
where tuition is done in Armenian, and a hundred schools of that
number are located in Samtskhe-Javakheti.”

“It’s Armenians who mostly occupy executive posts in the areas with
big Armenian communities and no one objects to holding local meetings
in the Armenian language, but there’s nothing extraordinary in the
fact you must write documents in Georgian if you submit them to
central agencies of power or to an archive,” Baiburt said.

A census held in 2002 showed that Georgia had a population of 4.4
million, 84% of them ethnic Georgians, 6.5% Azerbaijanis, 5.7%
Armenians and 1.5% Russians.

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
April 14, 2007 Saturday

New ferry makes first trial run from Georgia to Russia

KRASNODAR, April 14

The transport ferry Smat successfully made its first trial run from
the Georgian port of Poti to the Russian port of Kavkaz on Saturday.

Regular trips will start in a week or a week and a half and “the
first cargo to the carried by the ferry to Poti for Armenia will be
five VK-10 electric locomotives,” which are already arriving at
Temryuk by railway, the head of the Temryuk office of the Parom
Chernogo Morya (Black Sea Ferry), Yuri Timchenko, told Itar-Tass on
Saturday.

“The electric locomotives will be delivered to Armenia as
humanitarian aid by a decision of the Russian government,” he said.

On Sunday, “technical procedures of ferry loading and unloading will
be practiced,” Timchenko said, adding that similar work has already
been completed in Poti.

The ferry is run by a Russian crew of 20 members. It will run at
least once a week and can take up to 50 railway carriages or 34-
containers or 86 automobiles.

Until recently cargoes between Armenia and Russia were transported by
the Poti-Ilyichevsk (Ukraine) route, but it is longer and more
expensive. The new route will reduce both travel time and costs.

>From Poti cargoes will travel on to Armenia by railway.

First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said recently in Yerevan
that the launch of the new ferry service “will at last establish a
regular and extensive transport connection with Armenia”.

Ivanov considers it very important to launch a ferry link between
Kavkaz and Poti to resolve transport problems.

“The launch of a new ferry running en route Kavkaz-Poti that can
carry up to 50 cargo railway carriages helps to resolve one of the
key problems – Armenia’s transport blockade,” Ivanov told a joint
news conference with participation of Armenian Prime Minister Serzh
Sarkisian on Wednesday. “The opening of the ferry link will make it
possible to partially cut the Gordian knot already now,” he said.

“By late summer a second ferry will begin operating, which will
increase cargo turnover,” he said. “There are also long-term
programmes for the development of railway transport, but it is still
early to speak about them.”

“Transport is a key problem in our relations, because all the rest
becomes senseless without transport,” Ivanov said.

The agreement on the opening of the Kavkaz-Poti railway and ferry
link was signed by the then Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and
Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin back in January 2005.

The first ferry shipped 14 railway carriages full of corn in March
2005. Later the ferry made several passages and this link was
suspended soon.

Initially the ferry should have run between the ports twice or thrice
a week.

The resumption of a ferry link is very important, as Russia and
Georgia have not had direct railway link since August 1992, when an
armed conflict broke in Georgia’s breakaway of Abkhazia.

Since then cargoes to Armenia that has no common border with Russia
have been delivered by motorways bypassing its neighbour of Georgia,
which resulted in transportation price hikes.