Author: Nahapetian Samvel

ONE OF THE ISSUES EMPHASIZED

Azat Artsakh – Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR)
07 Jan 05

The continuity of improvement of the social and economic state of the
republic was maintained in the chief financial document of the
country, thestate budget 2005. The latter has doubled since 2001. The
dynamics of growth expressed itself in all the spheres of economy and
life of the country, including the national program of governmental
support to small and medium-size business.In market economy small and
medium-size business with its prevailing role is the important
component of economic development of NKR. Governmental support and the
program of investments will favour not only domestic but also foreign
economic relationships. It also means effectiveness of small and
medium-size business activity and improvement of competition. This
will result in significant increase of jobs, supply the spheres with
modern mechanisms and equipment on the expense of state financial
investments and accrued incomes. For the implementation of the
national program of governmental support to small andmedium-size
business 800 million drams were provided from the state budget, of
which 200 million will be provided for viticulture, cattle breeding
and acquirement of agriculture machines each. Besides, 185 million
drams will be loaned to other branches of production, services,
science and education. The program also involves the sphere of
information and creation of foreign economic relationships. For this
purpose 3 million drams will be provided for business information,
publication of information and analytical materials, web sites. 2
million drams will be provided for organization of expositions and
fairs for the purpose of stimulating foreign economic activity. 1
million drams will be provided for enabling the participation of the
personnel of the sphere of small and medium-size business in training
and qualification courses. In case of not complete expenditure of the
provided sums these will be used for other purposes. This
comprehensive program will be implemented through the foundation
`Development of Small and Medium-Size Business’.

AA.
07-01-2005

Moldova Azi, Moldova
Jan 5 2005

Forces of Order Reported an Unprecedented Case of Hostage Taking

Two Armenian hostages were released last week from an apartment in
Slobozia town as part of a common operation organized by the Moldovan
Ministry of Internal Affairs, Transdniestrian militia and Armenian
forces of order.
Nicolae Dobos, employee of the Operative Services Department of MIA,
declared at a press conference that the two hostages are Edic
Davtean, aged 70, employee of an Armenian commercial firm specialized
in selling and installing equipment for the production of paper
articles and Kirakosean Gaghic of 47, the director of the same firm.

Dobos specified that Davtean was kidnapped in May 2004 by two
citizens of the self-proclaimed Transdniestrian republic who tempted
the old man to come to Kiev town under the pretext of installing the
machinery producing articles of paper. When in Kiev, Davtean was
doped and taken illegally to the Transdniestrian region.

Threatening his family with death, the kidnappers extorted from the
victim 25 Th. USD, his relatives managing to transmit only 10 Th.
USD.

On 7 December 2004, the same offenders called in Kiev the director of
the firm, Kirakosean, who was taken after the same scenario to the
apartment where Davtean was brought. For their release the offenders
asked 365 Th. USD.

The persons by whose order the kidnapping was performed were arrested
during the operations for freeing the hostages. They turned out to be
brothers Dadas and David Artiunov aged 41 and, respectively, 45. The
forces of order established that they were in collusion with other
two accomplices who are announced generally wanted at present.

Concomitantly, the police found out that the two brothers bought in
2001 from Kirakosean Gaghic’s firm machinery for the production of
paper articles. Afterwards, after gathering enormous debts towards
the businessmen and banks from the Transdniestrian region, they
decided to return their debts by extorting money from the two
hostages.

Transdniestrian forces of order initiated on the given case a
criminal record for hostage taking. The cited source mentioned that
this is the only case of this kind that was registered in Moldova
over the last ten years. //REPORTER.MD

ENTERPRISES PROCESSING VEGETABLES UNCONSCIENTIOUS, RA MINISTER OF
AGRICULTURE CONSIDERS

YEREVAN, December 30 (Noyan Tapan). The Armenian enterprises
processing vegetables are unconscientious, that’s why the laying-in
volumes have reduced three times this year. Davit Lokian, RA Minister
of Agriculture, said this during the December 30 press conference.
According to him, these companies didn’t carry out the necessary
payments to the farms in time, in consequence of which the latters
reduced the sowing areas of vegetables (mainly tomatoes) and some
refused to cooperate with processing companies at all. The Minister,
in particular, mentioned that the large companies of Ararat marz
didn’t discharge their obligations. The Minister prognosticated that
the companies laying in store vegetables will have to raise the prices
for vegetables in order to rouse interest in the farms. According to
D.Lokian, the profit of the farms from 81 thousand tons of grapes laid
in store this year made $25m, which is a sufficient result. And the
envisaged amounts of laying-in of apricots and peaches weren’t
provided because of the small crop.

Sunday Express, UK
January 2, 2005

JB PRIESTLEY’S DELIGHTS

JB Priestley’s timeless, uplifting essays on the nature of delight
have proved a huge hit with Sunday Express readers.

Please keep your own delights coming – we will publish our third
collection of your contributions soon.

ROMANTIC RECOGNITION

TWO EXAMPLES will do. When we were flying from Erivan, the capital of
Armenia, to Sukham, on the Black Sea, a Soviet scientist, who spoke
English, tapped me on the shoulder and then pointed to a fearsome
rock face, an immeasurable slab bound in the iron of eternal winter.
“That, ” he announced, “is where Prometheus was chained.”

And then all my secret terror – for a journey among the mountains of
the Caucasus in a Russian plane is to my unheroic soul an ordeal –
gave way for a moment to wonder and delight, as if an illuminated
fountain had shot up in the dark.

And then, years earlier, in the autumn of 1914, when we were on a
route march in Surrey, I happened to be keeping step with the company
commander, an intelligent Regular lent to us for a month or two. We
were passing a little old woman who was watching us from an open
carriage, near the entrance to a mansion.

“Do you know who that is?” the captain asked; and, of course, I
didn’t. “It’s the Empress Eugenie, ” he told me; and young and
loutish as I was in those days, nevertheless there flared about me
then, most delightfully, all the splendour and idiocy of the Second
Empire, and I knew that we, every man Jack of us, were in history,
and knew once and for all.

WHAT IS YOUR DELIGHT?

Write to: Priestley Delights, Sunday Express, Number 10 Lower Thames
Street, London EC3 6ER E-mail: sunday. exletters@express. co. uk

El Pais
31 Dic, 2004

El maestro de las cuerdas y la madera

MANUEL PLANELLES

Cordoba

Stepan Kostanyan nacio hace 48 anos en la republica ex sovietica de
Armenia. Desde hace cinco, vive y trabaja en Cordoba. Es un maestro
de lutheria. Sus manos reparan violines, violas, contrabajos,
guitarras… Es el heredero de una profesion cada vez mas escasa: el
arte de construir y reparar instrumentos de cuerda.

Stepan tambien es musico. Durante 19 anos, toco el violin en dos de
las orquestas mas afamadas de su Armenia natal. En esa epoca,
compagino los conciertos con sus primeros pasos en el arte de la
lutheria.

Pero, tal y como cuenta con voz queda, la situacion economica en su
pais no era para tirar cohetes. El dinero apenas le llegaba para
mantener a su esposa e hija, quienes viven todavia en Armenia. Asi
que, cuando un grupo de compatriotas y amigos le invitaron a viajar a
Espana, no se lo penso e hizo las maletas. Este grupo de amigos forma
parte de la Orquesta de Cordoba, que dirige Charles Olivieri Munroe.
Stepan se ha convertido en el luthier encargado de reparar los
instrumentos de los componentes de esta formacion con 12 anos de
historia. Pero, segun cuenta, cada vez son mas los musicos del resto
de Andalucia y de las comunidades vecinas que le llevan sus violines
y violas para que los ponga a punto.

Sobre la mesa de trabajo de Stepan hay virutas y un punado de
herramientas. “Lo hace todo con sus manos”, afirma Manuel Gutierrez
Diaz, el dueno del taller de lutheria. Manuel conocio a Stepan hace
cuatro anos. Cuando se entero de que reparaba instrumentos de cuerda,
le invito a trabajar en su tienda de la calle Angel de Saavedra.
Manuel ayudo a regularizar la situacion de Stepan y desde entonces
este armenio es su empleado.

Sobre la mesa, rodeada de las virutas y de las pequenas herramientas,
hay una tapa agrietada de violin que Stepan esta reparando. Se trata
de un instrumento de la escuela sajona del siglo XVIII. “Es muy
interesante… Cada luthier tiene su secreto, su plantilla”. Stepan
coge la tapa y comienza a darle pequenos golpes: “Aunque hay algunos
artesanos que no lo hacen, desde hace siglos, los maestros de la
escuela italiana tambien afinan las tapas de los violines”. Cada
punto de la tapa debe tener un sonido y el luthier debe pulir la
madera de arce hasta conseguirlo.

Stepan repasa con sus dedos la anatomia del violin que esta
reparando. Cada milimetro determina el resultado final. El arco, el
mastil, el alma, las cuerdas… Una mezcla de artesania y de pura
fisica en la que el termino “resonancia” no desentona con la nobleza
del ebano.

Aunque el trabajo de Stepan tiene mucho de la carpinteria mas
delicada, segun explica, “es mejor que el luthier toque algun
instrumento… Si no, es imposible que comprenda lo que esta
haciendo”.

Pero Stepan no solo repara violines, tambien los construye. De sus
manos han salido dos chelos y seis violines, que tienen un precio de
mercado de entre 4.000 y 5.000 euros. Stepan confiesa que esto es lo
que mas le apasiona: “Me gusta mas hacerlos que tocarlos”.

Renseignor , France
26 décembre 2004

Des soldats arméniens seront déployés en Iraq…

Le parlement arménien a approuvé vendredi avec 91 voix pour, 23
contre et une abstention, la décision du gouvernement d’envoyer 43
militaires non combattants en Iraq où ils auraient pour charge de
seconder la coalition de guerre dirigée par les américains.

L’opposition et des organisations de jeunesse s’étaient farouchement
opposées à cette mesure qui mettrait, selon eux, en danger la vie de
la diaspora arménienne vivant en Iraq. Celle-ci compte près de 20 000
personnes. Un accord conclu début septembre entre l’Arménie et la
Pologne prévoyait l’intégration de militaires non combattants
arméniens au contingent dirigé par les polonais en Iraq.

Expected failure for deposit reimbursements

The Messenger, Georgia
Dec 24 2004

The Armenian newspaper Aravot reports on the recent failure the
National Assembly to approve legislation to reimburse depositors who
lost money in the early 1990’s. A member of the party “Orinats Erkir”
considers that the failure is a show of respect to the president of
the country but at the same time, many deputies see the event as a
defeat for the head of the assembly.

The president had criticized the bill for being a distraction. “We
cannot discuss such a significant and confusing issue before the
discussion of the state budget. Moreover, the 2005 budget envisages
an increase of salaries of teachers and soldiers from January 1. I
think that this is purposeful step, the goal of which is to create a
tense situation in the country and to force the coalition as well as
parliament to avoid the decision of the main issues,” stated
Kocharian.

He assured that in his two election campaigns he had never given such
promises.

There was no quorum and as a result the session failed. It is
obvious, the paper writes, “that the recent statement by the
president of the country Robert Kocharian affected on MPs and they
decided not to come to the session.”

According to the secretary of the faction “Justice” Victor Dalakian,
this measure must have been enacted before the elections of 2003. “It
proves that he [the president] deceived the people,” stated the MP.
Kocharian also noted that the MP who initiated the hearing was
pursuing his own goal, particularly, he was acting against the head
of parliament and the ruling party. This statement was directed
toward the chair of the National Assembly Artur Bagdasarian. However,
Bagdasarian expressed satisfaction that a commission had been created
to study the issue.

He also noted that this problem has already been solved in
Nagorno-Karabakh thanks to cooperation of the former president of
Karabakh Robert Kocharian. “I am sure that there is no person in
Armenia who does not realize this problem is a problem of the social
sphere… I also am sure that everybody wants to return the deposits to
the population,” stated Bagdasarian.

–Boundary_(ID_QDsJFDaIM4+WmfjLRDlIXQ)–

‘Vodka’s’ not quite pink lemonade
By Gary Arnold

Washington Times
Dec 24 2004

“Vodka Lemon,” opening exclusively at the Landmark E Street Cinema
tomorrow, looms as a marginal outreach project for novelty-seeking
art-house patrons. Absorbed in the texture of life in a snowbound,
impoverished and essentially disheartening village somewhere in
Kurdish Armenia, the movie is deficient in dramatic incident and
variety, stimulating social observation or lively character
interplay.
The work of a Kurdish Iraqi exile named Hineer Saleem, who left
his homeland 20 years ago and now resides in Paris, the movie
attempts to generate whimsical and even hopeful notes of humor
despite a setting that favors the static and morose. The title
alludes to a roadside tavern that seems to deal exclusively in
bottles of Vodka Lemon, presumably a fortifier along trackless
wastes. Actually, it’s more in the nature of an open-air counter,
similar to a roadside produce stand.

The boss of the watering hole arrives at one point to inform his
bundled-up waitress, a middle-aged widow named Nina (Lala
Sarkissian), that business is too slow to justify her employment.
This doesn’t come as a total surprise, bearing in mind the adage
“location, location, location.”
A lugubrious matchmaker, Mr. Saleem intends Nina as a potential
companion for a somewhat older widower named Hamo (Romen Avinian), a
white-haired former soldier who seems to be selling off all his
remaining possessions while awaiting financial assistance in vain
from a son who has migrated to France. Another son, evidently beyond
hope as a donor, is said to live in Samarkand. A sullen third
specimen called Dilovan (Ivan Franck) is in camera range; he still
lives in the village, nursing grievances about the fixer who has
promised to arrange a job somewhere in the vast reaches of the former
Soviet empire.
Hamo is wistful about the departure of the Russians, who at least
kept up the dole. We observe that he is a less-than-wily bargainer
when putting his own goods up for grabs: a wardrobe, a Soviet
television monitor and an old uniform go for about 20 percent of his
initial asking price. Hamo and Nina often share a bus ride during
daily trips to the cemetery, obviously a symbolic as well as a
picturesquely bleak landmark.
There are amusing deadpan details, particularly the local
fondness for posting chairs outside in order to share a nice cold
sit, smoke and, on rare occasions, chat. A drafty-looking community
center allows some shelter for socializing, but the liveliest
communal activity appears to be waiting for Hamo to get a call from
Paris. A small herd of sheep is linked metaphorically to the docile
populace, and an enigmatic horseman does four or five enigmatic
ride-throughs.
Ultimately, Mr. Saleem wraps up this tour of stagnating
small-town Armenia by playing the magic realism card. Nina, Hamo and
her piano share a wistful vigil on the side of the road before
hitting the road, in a physically impossible way. Still, the mobility
itself is encouraging. The resale value of their hometown looks nil.
A getaway could be just the ticket. Maybe Paris is in the market for
piano duets.
**
TITLE: “Vodka Lemon”
RATING: No MPAA Rating (adult subject matter, with fleeting
violence and sexual allusions)
CREDITS: Written and directed by Hiner Saleem. Cinematography by
Christophe Pollock. Production design by Albert Hamarash. Music by
Michel Korb. In Armenian, Kurdish, Russian and French with English
subtitles
RUNNING TIME: 88 minutes
WEB SITE:
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS

Associated Press
Dec 24 2004

Israel prepares to welcome Christians
Officials hope relaxed Palestinian-Israeli tensions will encourage
visits to Bethlehem.

Visitors touch a column in the Church of the Nativity, traditionally
believed to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in Bethlehem.
Enric Marti / the Associated Press

By Peter Enav
Associated Press

Jerusalem — Israel is taking special steps to ensure a merry
Christmas in Bethlehem, a military official said Thursday, raising
hopes for a gentler holiday in the traditional birthplace of Jesus
after four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
International attention focuses on the West Bank town on Christmas
Eve, so Israeli officials see an improved Christmas atmosphere there
as a boon to Israel’s troubled image.

“The importance of Bethlehem to the Christian world is clear to us,”
said Lt. Col. Aviv Feigel, head of the army’s Bethlehem district
liaison office. “We in the army are preparing ourselves for this
momentous occasion.”

The main difference with previous years is the perception of lessened
tensions since the Nov. 11 death of Yasser Arafat. Israel accused him
of involvement in Palestinian violence and is hoping for a more
pragmatic, nonviolent leadership to replace him.

Briefing reporters on preparations for Bethlehem, Feigel said Israel
would transfer security control there to Palestinian forces between
Christmas Eve and the Armenian Christmas on Jan. 19. He said Israeli
soldiers manning Bethlehem area checkpoints also would be given
detailed instructions on how to deal with Christian visitors.

Shortly after the latest Palestinian uprising began four years ago,
Israel took control of main West Bank towns and roads, setting up
dozens of roadblocks. Bethlehem is surrounded by posts controlling
entry and exit, and the barrier that Israel is building in the West
Bank cuts through the town.

Within that framework, the military said it would allow Israeli and
Gaza Christians to visit Bethlehem and would not restrict the numbers
of West Bank Palestinians arriving there.

“Every soldier at the checkpoints will receive a detailed sheet of
information about the importance of Bethlehem to Christians, so they
will know how to behave,” Feigel said.

A town of 40,000 people 4 miles south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem was
once a magnet for foreign visitors during the Christmas season, with
tens of thousands crowding Manger Square during the annual midnight
Mass on Christmas Eve.

But the numbers dropped precipitously after violence resumed in
September 2000, falling to only 2,000 last year. This year Israeli
officials are expecting about 4,000 visitors, because of the recent
reduction in violence and the more relaxed atmosphere.

–Boundary_(ID_lKf1cjUn+zmbdTyyzxTdHA)–

ERNEKIAN ALLOCATES ANOTHER 300,000 DOLLARS TO “HAYASTAN” FOUNDATION

YEREVAN, December 21 (Noyan Tapan). Argentinian Armenian Eduardo
Ernekian recently allocated another 300,000 dollars to the “Hayastan”
(“Armenia”) Pan-Armenian Foundation for the construction of the
North-South higwhay of Artsakh. Naira Melkumian, the Executive
Director of the Foundation, told journalists about it on December
21. To recap, Ernekian allocated 1.5 mln dollars during the recent
telethon organized for the construction of the highway.