Author: Nalbandian Eduard

SAKHA AND ARMEN HOVIK COMPANIES FINED FOR USING TRADE MARKS OF NESCAFE AND PELE

Noyan Tapan
May 23 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 23, NOYAN TAPAN. The studies conducted by the RA State
Commission on Protection of Economic Competition on the Armenian
consumer market showed that Sakha company produces and sells "Gold
Coffee", whose packet also has a Nescafe trade mark on it. This was
stated at the May 23 sitting of the commission.

It was noted that the Nescafe trade mark is registered under the name
of Societe des Produits Nestle S. A. company by the RA Intellectual
Property Agency. Armen Hovik company put a Pele trade mark on the
label of its production – Sakafe coffee, although Pele trade mark is
registered under the name of Companhia Cacique de Cafe Soluvel company.

According to the commission, the use of Nescafe and Pele trade marks by
Sakha company and Armen Hovik company respectively (without permission
of their owners) is a violation of the law on economic competition
because these trade marks may mislead consumers. Both companies were
fined by the commission in the amount of 100 thousand drams each. They
were told to withdraw the indicated goods from the market and to stop
their production. The companies were warned that they will be fined
in the amount of a million drams each if these goods are found in
the market again in a month.

FERRY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN GEORGIA AND RUSSIA TO BECOME REGULAR

ArmInfo
2007-05-22 13:10:00

The direct railway ferry communication between Georgia and Russia
will become regular, the document on which was signed by the Director
General of the Railway of Georgia Irakli Ezugbaia and his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Yakunin on May 19 in Kazakhstan at the session
of CIS RW Transport Council.

As the Georgian Railway Department’s press-service told the "Caucasian
Junction" correspondent, only here pilot hauls were carried out by
Poti-Caucasus ferry route in 2006 on the basis of an intergovernmental
agreement between Georgia and Russia. Two hauls were carried out this
year, however, there was no regular communication so far. The Black
Sea Ferry & Investments Company was engaged in the Poti- Caucasus
ferry route implementation project by the initiative of the Russian
railways. As expected, the functioning of the ferry communication by
Poti-Caucasus line will increase the volumes of transport and export
cargo through Georgia’s RW. The ferry communication will connect the
Russian "Caucasus" port, situated on the Taman peninsular, with the
Georgian Poti town. This route will become part of the shortest and
economical way from Russia to Georgia and Armenia. It is scheduled to
start up the second similar ferry by the end of summer, that will
allow to assure considerable increase of goods turnover between
the countries.

To recall, a Memorandum on resumption of a regular ferriage "Port
Caucasus-Poti" was signed in Yerevan on February 13 by RA Transport
and Communication Minister Andranik Manukyan and President of the
"Reserve Capital Enterpising Corporation" Swiss Company, being
owner of Khakim Matchanov ferries. According to the Minister, with
the functioning of the new ferry, the transportation prices will be
lower than those of the Ukrainian "Ukferry" carrier by 20%.

Moreover, the cargo from the Russian "Caucasus" port to the Georgian
Poti will be delivered within 31 hours, while the goods from the
Ilichevsk port to Poti reach within 50 hours.

RUSSIA TO CONTINUE MEDIATION EFFORTS IN KARABAKH SETTLEMENT – LAVROV

Interfax, Russia
May 22 2007

BAKU. May 22 (Interfax) – Russia will continue playing an active
role as a mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov told students at Baku State University on
Tuesday.

"We sincerely want to achieve the fastest resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We are going to continue active mediation
to search for a mutually acceptable settlement both bilaterally and
within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group," the minister said.

"There are chances, and they are good," he said.

ELMAR MAMMADYAROV: RUSSIA SHOULD PLAY KEY AND DECISIVE ROLE IN THE SOLUTION OF NAGORNO KARABAKH CONFLICT

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
May 21 2007

Azerbaijani and Russian Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov and Sergey
Lavrov held a meeting in Baku today.

Following the meeting, Elmar Mammdayarov called the talks serious and
efficient in the press conference. He said the talks focused on the
issues concerning missile defense system in Europe, status of Kosovo
and Nagorno Karabakh, legal status of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijani
Minister said the position of the two states coincide in many
political issues, stressing the expansion and strengthening of
bilateral relations and increasing bilateral trade turnover between
two countries.

Sergey Lavrov emphasized that relations with Azerbaijan are of
significant interest for Russia. "We discussed the organization of
the 11th conference of Intergovernmental Commission, cooperation in
economical, humanitarian, military spheres, increasing the number
of Russian higher schools’ branches in Azerbaijan, teaching of the
Azerbaijan language in Russian territory". Sergey Lavrov said Russia
supports peace and stability in the Caucasus.

"From this point of view, we are concerned about unsolved conflicts
in the region". Russian Foreign Minister said Azerbaijan and Armenia
through the mediation of OSCE Minsk Group co chairs continue to make
efforts to settle the conflict. "I am sure that the parties will
demonstrate political will to find a solution to the conflict. Russia
as the co chair of the OSCE Minsk Group and as the friend of both
Azerbaijan and Armenia will do its utmost to settle the conflict,"
he stressed.

Russian Minister said the basis of strong relationships between
Azerbaijan and Russia was laid by Heydar Aliyev and further expanded
by Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin within their friendship.

Elmar Mammadyarov said Russian co chair of OSCE Minsk Group is
actively working. "We are satisfied with the activity of Russian co
chair. We consider that Russia should play a key and decisive role in
the settlement of the Karabakh problem. We always considered Russia
as Caucasus state. The mutual relations, friendly neighborhood,
cooperation, friendship between our Presidents show that we are on
the true way."

NABAZTAG TAG

PC Authority, Australia
May 21 2007

It looks Japanese, comes from France has a name derived from the
Armenian word for rabbit and now an English-speaking version is
available in Australia. Not surprisingly this multinationally-derived
resident has a few issues.

The bundled instructions are the simplest aspect of Nabaztag to
understand: "1) Plug your rabbit into a power outlet, 2) go to
, 3) Your rabbit is alive!" Step 2 walks you
through setting up an ad-hoc Wi-Fi connection with the rabbit in
order to change its settings and attach it to your wireless network.

It’s quite simple.

Once you’ve got it on the Internet, and you know when you’ve succeeded
because of Close Encounters-like light signals, you can register
it. But we couldn’t. The main France-based website was constantly
down when we tried to register and after a very frustrating twenty
attempts our supplier had to register our rabbit for us.

Once up and running we were part of the community.

Here you can look up other global rabbit owners and send them
messages – the rabbits will either read out your text messages (in
several choices of English or French voices) or play 30 seconds of a
song. Before and after each announcement the rabbit will play a sound
which can vary from a didgeridoo, through ticking to musical notes.

You can also sign up for services as diverse as reading out various
RSS feeds, to telling you the weather, telling you a joke or just
some random mentalism at a daily time of your choosing. We found
subscribing to feeds very hit and miss – many simply never arrived.

Some are free, but others require a Nabaztag subscription of US$5
per month (first month is free).

This meant that our rabbit generally sat in our office doing little
other than flashing most of the time with just an occasional random
ejaculatory announcement being accompanied with some ear twirling
and noise.

The ‘Tag’ that proceeds Nabaztag refers to the bellybutton microphone
(earlier non ‘Tag’ versions didn’t have one). An RFID allows your
rabbit to ‘smell’ and give reports on the air quality. There’s a
3.5mm jack for external speakers (its internal speaker can be too
quiet in a bustling environment) and a button on top of the head can
be pressed to repeat all messages (laborious if you missed a one word
quip and you have to listen to several minutes of old messages). If
you press it longer you can (supposedly) give it voice commands, like
telling you stock prices, the weather or to connect to an Internet
Radio station. However, after dozens of attempts at saying two word
phrases fast and slow and in various accents the rabbit did nothing
but spout annoying phrases about how it couldn’t understand.

We constantly found ourselves frustrated by the rabbit and most of
the Web-based help is still in French only. But there’s something
undeniably charming about this bunny and its semaphore-like ear
dancing which is the only thing which stopped us punting out of the
nearest window in a fit of frustrated pique. Nonetheless, it has
become something of a craze among its blogger community who spend
a great deal of time decorating the rabbits and using its API to
programme 3rd party rabbit-based applications.

If you’re lonely and fancy a joining a Toulose-Loutrec-inspired,
quasi-Franco mentalist blogging community and paying $260 for
something that doesn’t always work, you’ll love it. Otherwise, erm,
you probably won’t.

Robert Simmons: Armenia made a step in the right direction on May 12

ArmRadio.am
21.05.2007 13:07

The Special Representative of NATO Secretary General for South
Caucasus and Central Asia Robert Simmons said in an interview with
Mediamax that ` construction of democratic institutions is an
important component of Armenia’s Individual Partnership Action Plan
(IPAP) with NATO, and I’m glad that an important step in the right
direction was made during the parliamentary elections of May 12.

`At the same time, like the NATO Secretary General, I want to
underline that there is still much to do. The international observers
mentioned several mistakes, and measures should be taken to eliminate
these,’ Robert Simmons noted.

The Special Representative of NATO Secretary General reminded that the
IPAP envisages ambitious objectives, including democratic reforms.’

`Still before the elections, in April 2007 we held assessment of the
progress of the IPAP implementation. The evaluation was, on the whole,
positive, despite the fact that there are a number of fields where the
work should be continued. The fact that the May 12 elections are an
improvement as compared to the previous ones is a positive signal. It
inspires trust that we shall be able to achieve progress in a number
of spheres with our Armenian partners,’ Robert simmons declared.

Focus News, Bulgaria
May 19 2007

Armenian PM’s party gets nearly half of seats in parliament

19 May 2007 | 20:45 | FOCUS News Agency

Yerevan. The party of Armenia’s prime minister won 64 seats in
parliamentary elections, two seats short of an outright majority,
according to a final tally released Saturday by the Central Elections
Commission, AP reported. The results of the May 12 national elections
leaves the Republican Party of premier Serge Sarkisian in a
distinctly stronger position than in the previous parliament, where
it held only 39 of the 131 seats. The new Prosperous Armenia party
got the second highest number of seats at 24. The party is seen by
many as having been created at the behest of President Robert
Kocharian as a nominal counterbalance to the Republican Party. The
Dashnak-Tsutsyun party, which was in the previous parliament’s
majority coalition, won 16 seats and former coalition partner Orinats
Yerkir got nine seats. The remainder went to a scattering of smaller
parties and independent candidates. Opposition parties have
complained of fraud in the election, but international observers in
general commended the vote as improving Armenia’s conformance with
democratic norms.

In Stepanakert houses are pledged as security, in Martuni land

19-05-2007 12:06:14 – KarabakhOpen

In the first quarter of 2007 143 deals involved collaterals, which is
up by 24.3 percent compared with the same period of 2006.

Most deals involving collateral were made in Stepanakert ` 67.1
percent. The reason is that the lending companies accept realty in the
capital. For instance, in the regions of Martakert and Kashatagh
there were no deals involving realty as security.

In Stepanakert 48 apartments, 20 houses, 23 public buildings and 3
enterpr ises were pledged as collateral. In Askeran 8 enterprises, 4
public buildings and 4 plots of land were pledged, and in Martuni 12
land plots and 8 houses were pledged as collateral.

"RECONCILED" AZERIS LEAVING FOR WASHINGTON
By A. Haroutiunian

AZG Armenian Daily
17/05/2007

On June 9-10, Washington, shall take place political-military
consultations between the USA and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani mass media
inform that the announcement was made by Jonathan Henick, Public
Relations Coordinator at the US Embassy in Azerbaijan.

Matthew Bryza, Deputy-Secretary of State and Co-Chairman of OSCE
Minsk Group shall also take part in the talks on America’s side.

The aforementioned USA-Azerbaijan consultations were to take place
already on April 23-25, but were postponed because the Azeris were
"grieved" of the alterations to the statement on Nagorno-Karabakh in
the Department of State Human Rights Report. Readers of Azg must know
well that the alterations were made by the request of the Armenian
side, but later, after a dozen provocative actions by Azerbaijan,
the original phrasing was restored.

MESROP MUTAFIAN: IF ARMENIAN BILL IS PLACED ON PARLIAMENT’S AGENDA, TURKISH-FRENCH TRADE CONTACTS WILL BE DAMAGED

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 15 2007

ISTANBUL, MAY 15, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Armenian Patriarch
of Constantinople Archbishop Mesrop Mutafian attached importance
to Armenians’ being represented at Majlis. In his interview to the
Zaman Turkish daily the Patriarch said that the time to enlarge and
develop contacts with Armenia and Armenian Diaspora has already come
and Turkey and Armenia should organize mutual visits of journalists,
intellectuals, youth and NGOs.

Speaking about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s statement about
Turkey, Mesrop Mutafian said: "Our respectable Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Oli Ren, as well as I
hope that Sarkozy will calm down after taking president’s office. Trade
contacts between France and our state are at rather a high level. And
if the bill on the Genocide is again placed on the agenda, these
relations will appear in complicated and difficult condition."

To recap, as early as during the preelection campaign Sarkozy had
promised to hamper Turkey’s membership to EU, as well as to struggle
against any attempt to deny the Armenian Genocide.