Author: Navasardian Karapet

IDIOCY, OR WHAT EXCESSIVE EAGERNESS OF AZERBAIJANI JOURNALISTS LEADS TO

ArmInfo
2009-08-20 16:51:00

ArmInfo. Today Azerbaijani news agencies disseminated another opus
entitled "Merciless killing of Azerbaijani in Armenian captivity
confirmed".

In particular, the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and
Missing Persons made a statement that "while analyzing the materials
collected in the State Commission about the people captured as a
result of Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan, it became known that
Atakishiyev Farhad Rahman, 39, was killed mercilessly in captivity",
APA reports.

To note, here we gave the exact text of the propagandist idiocy which
our glorious colleagues abased themselves so far as to invent. Thus,
according to the logic of the literal text, it turns out that our
Azerbaijani colleagues acknowledge the fact of aggression against
Armenians by Azerbaijan in 1991-1994. Furthermore, our colleagues state
that Armenian military servicemen "tortured Atakishiyev and wanted to
make him say "Karabakh belongs to Armenians". But Farhad Atakishiyev
was not afraid of tortures and death and said "Karabakh belongs and
will belong to Azerbaijan", that’s why he was killed mercilessly".

In this connection, we also have some questions to our propagandist
colleagues. In particular, bewilderment arises how the literal text
of Atakishiyev’s statement addressed to his "torturers" has become
known if there were no other Azeris there except him. It is also
inexplicable why the events which allegedly took place in 1991, as our
Azeri colleagues point out correctly, as a result of Azeri aggression,
have become known only now. "72 deadly injuries were found on his body
during the forensic medical examination. The materials gathered about
Atakishiyev Farhad were presented to Azerbaijani President and under
the order issued by the President on July 28, 2009, he was awarded
"Azerbaijani flag" order (postmortem)",- APA reports.

But again, any normal person, who has read this propagandist nonsense,
has a question – how did the Azerbaijani morbid anatomists, if there
are such in the world, determine the number of injuries on the body
of the "hero" now, 18 years later?

The only conclusion one may come to after reading all this invented
idiocy, is on the surface. Azerbaijani authorities suffering from a
defeatist syndrome and having no real Azeri heroes of the Karabakh war
simply have to invent such "Atakishiyevs" to create a spirit of heroism
among the Azerbaijani youth while the Azeri youth doesn’t care about
"restoration of territorial integrity" of Azerbaijan as it hasn’t even
heard about such a notion as "Karabakh included in Azeri territory". At
the same time, the real Azerbaijani heroes either have already decayed
or are decaying in Azeri prisons in an easy state of mind of Aliyev
the Senior, who imprisoned them because the unlimitedness of his
power was threatened. Our colleagues had better inform at least the
growing generation of their existence. However, it is much safer and
much more beneficial to invent "heroes- Atakishiyevs".

THREE ARMENIAN OPERATORS SIGN MEMORANDUM

Panorama.am
15:16 19/08/2009

Public Services Regulatory Commission of Republic of Armenia signed a
memorandum with the three operators of Armenia "K-Telecom", "ArmenTel"
and "Orange Armenia" on interrelated payments.

The commission has adopted two decisions after discussions about the
dispute between the companies in May. The commission has taken into
account the European experience when making its final decisions. The
European Commission recommends usage of calculation method of long-term
optional payments for counting the costs of net calls.

ARMENIAN DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE PROMISES EASIER MORTGAGE CREDIT TERMS

News.am
18:16 / 08/19/2009

"The purport of the newly established Mortgage Fund is the Government’s
short-term measures aimed at opposing the economic crisis, doing so
in two directions – promoting both supply and demand," RA Deputy
Foreign Minister Vardan Aramyan told NEWS.am. "Promoting demand
alone and investing funds in the economy, with any supply lacking,
naturally means that the funds will be used for satisfying the demand
by means of import. But this system enables us to promote demand on
the real estate market as this is the secondary market that directs
initial capital to the construction sector," he said. "That is, if
the profitability or prices slump on the secondary market, suppliers
may encounter serious problems and terminate construction. But prices
fall because of low demand – purchasers are lacking. The lack of
purchaser is the result of lower incomes. Under the circumstances,
we are also trying to encourage purchasers," Aramyan said.

As to when the funds will be invested, he said that the RA Ministry
of Finance has transferred the funds to the Central Bank of Armenia
(CBA). So an answer to the question should be sought at the CBA or
at the Mortgage Fund. "I can only say that the process is starting
this September or October," Aramyan said.

Of interest are also credit terms. According to Aramyan, "business
will set the terms." A prepayment of 20 to 30 per cent will depend
on borrowers’ creditworthiness. "If a borrower has stable incomes,
he may make a very low prepayment or not make it at all," Aramyan
said. He stressed that credit terms at the Mortgage Fund will be
easier than before.

INTERVIEW: CLIO GRAY

The Scotsman
19 August, 2009

FROM Balintore, the village in Easter Ross that Clio Gray has made her
home, you can look across the Moray Firth to Culbin Sands, a broad
sandbank near Findhorn. In the 1630s, she tells me, the original
village on the site was obliterated in a freak sandstorm. People ran
across fields to safety while the sand engulfed their homes. She has
read about it.

Gray’s world is coloured by stories like this, gems she has found in
old, rare, obscure books, half-lost snippets of history. They burrow
their way into her novels and stories. Writing, she says, is "just
a way of bringing all those wonderful things ADVERTISEMENTtogether
and making sure they’re not completely lost forever."

The eyewitness account of the Findhorn sandstorm, for example, came in
useful in her latest novel, The Brotherhood of Five, out this month,
in which she describes a similar disaster in Thanet, at the eastern
tip of Kent. It’s a vivid beginning for a historical thriller, her
fourth featuring missing-persons investigator Whilbert Stroop.

Sitting over a pot of tea after hours in Tain Library, where Gray is
a part-time librarian, we are where she is happiest: among books. Her
house, she says, is full of them. Apart from her dogs, they are her
most constant companion. She plans her holidays around visits to
second-hand bookshops. Her favourite solace is to reorganise her books.

She knows all her books, she says. She would know if one were
missing. "I lent a few once to somebody and they never gave them
back. That was a long time ago and I can tell you exactly what those
books are and what’s in them. I regretted it and I regret it now."

She reads voraciously: histories and travelogues, novels and
nature books. She speed-reads bestsellers "to see what people are
reading". When she comes across something that interests her it is
catalogued, referenced, added to her personal database. No book is
wasted. "Everything you read can give you a different viewpoint. It
adds that bit more to your life experience, which can go into maybe
the next book, or a story."

Research becomes a journey through places and times. A particularly
interesting fact can change the direction of a plot. A short story
might be shaped just to include one.

"When I come across a single fact that I find quite interesting, I’ll
follow that fact, which usually leads me to something else and then
something else. And so you end up with this beautiful, serendipitous
journey. I love it, it’s a really pleasant way to spend your life."

Gray came to the notice of many in Scotland when she won The Scotsman
& Orange Short Story Competition in 2006 with I Should Have Listened
Harder, about a man facing death in a prison mine in a place called
Nertchinsk (she came across it in a book).

At this time, her first novel, Guardians of the Key, was being
considered by publishers Headline, after winning the Harry Bowling
Prize for an unpublished book set in London. Gray knew she wanted to
enter, but loathes cities in general and London in particular. She
found a solution in the past – "when London was more or less a
collection of villages".

Victorian London, she felt, had been the subject of enough spilled
ink. But she found a period to her liking in the early 1800s. Europe
was in turmoil with the aftermath of the French Revolution and the
ongoing Napoleonic Wars; the industrial revolution was just around
the corner. "The past is another country," she says. "I just feel
it’s somewhere I belong to."

All her books are infused with moments of history: London’s silk
traders and the relics of the city of Lucca (Guardians of the Key);
the port of Odessa, and a curious Pennines mansion (The Roaring of
the Labyrinth); the islands of Saareema, off the Estonian Coast, with
their strange Jurassic landscape (The Envoy of the Black Pine). The art
is in weaving disparate snippets into compelling historic mysteries.

Gray cheerfully ignored the advice often thrust at new writers to
"write what you know". "I think writing what you know is extremely
dull. How many people have lives that are interesting enough that
other people want to know about? I think the better piece of advice
is write what you’d like to read – you might end up with something
half decent. That’s what I do."

She does admit to an interest in death. She writes about turbulent
times when death was an ever-present neighbour. "We do forget how
close death was. It’s a common theme in just about everything I
write. We’re very blase today, we expect to live until we’re 80. Back
in the 1800s, 30 per cent of the population never made it past 40. I
am rather morbid, I suppose. I like reading about these things."

She does add some fairly macabre deaths of her own. In The Brotherhood
of Five, a man falls – or is pushed – into a vat of molten lead,
which was part of a complex of towers on the Thanet marshes for making
lead shot. "I was imagining the tower, how they would melt all the
lead and so forth. It was kind of obvious really, to chuck somebody
in. It is quite gruesome, isn’t it? But quite interesting. I tried
to research it.

"I wrote to a couple of people to ask what would happen if somebody
did go into a lead vat that was beginning to boil. But none of the
answers that came back were much help, so in the end I just made it
up. There comes a point where unless you carry out experiments by
dropping cats into vats, you’re never going to know. And where would
you get all the lead?" She pauses, grins. "I could rustle up the cat."

>From an early age, Gray, who was born in Yorkshire, showed both an
interest in the macabre and a voracious appetite for information. "I
was reading Hitchcock by the time I was about ten. I remember my
primary school teacher called my mother in because she was worried
about the deep, dark nature of things I was writing at school. I used
to catalogue what colour cars went past the window, make maps of our
local stream. It’s all there, isn’t it? The seeds."

At Leeds University, she "didn’t stick to the curriculum", instead
immersing herself in its idiosyncratic libraries. "I’d come across
books that hadn’t been issued for 70 years. Linguistic books and
dialect books and books on the Armenian genocide in 1914, which no-one
had ever heard of at the time. I used to spend a lot of time at the
medical library, which had all these fantastically gory journals on
bizarre ways people die. The difference between manual strangulation
and ropes, that sort of thing." Discovering she loved research, on
graduating she spent an unemployed year writing her own independent
dissertation. It could have been a surprise to no-one when she got
a job as a university librarian.

Seventeen years ago, after finding discarded syringes in her local
park, she handed in her notice, packed her camper van and headed
north. A mechanical fault at Fort William prompted a diversion
to Inverness where she was referred – she still has no idea why –
to Ken’s Garage at Kildary in Ross-shire. She drove to Balintore,
parked up and never left.

Scotland is where she started to write. "First I wrote
‘world-from-your-armchair’ type books, the kind of things they used
to write in the 1930s. They described nature to you in a story-type
manner, which is a bit of an art that has been lost now.

"It was really for my own satisfaction, I used to paint all the
pictures for them." Then came four novels, which failed to find a
publisher. She regrets none of it. It was all the learning of a craft.

Switching to short stories, she started entering competitions – and
winning prizes. A collection of her stories, Types of Everlasting Rest,
has now been published by Two Ravens Press. Her novels have established
her as a writer of highly original, intricately plotted crime fiction,
which has depth as well as pace. Writing in The Scotsman, Allan Massie
described her as "uncommonly interesting writer" – if a slightly
morbid one.

Now she is in the process of developing a new historic crime series
set in Helmsdale and Brora where (she discovered in books) there was
a mini-goldrush in 1868. "I think it will be good for me. You can
actually get trapped in a web of your own making."

Crime interests her, she says, because it gives the writer a broad
vista, a storyboard on which a range of strands can be incorporated. "I
like the solving of things. It gives you quite a large vista, you
can bring in quite a lot of external things.

"I can’t bear reading books about failed marriages."

More than that, I suspect, crime interests her because death
interests her. "The mechanics of death are quite interesting, and
the implications. Someone is gone from the world. And how you can
never know if there’s anything on the other side. That’s interesting,
don’t you think?"

~U The Brotherhood of Five is published by Headline, price £19.99. Clio
Gray is appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival with fellow crime
writer Catriona McPherson at 6:45pm tomorrow.

The Life of an Armenian Icon, Through His Own Words
By Antranig Dereyan – on August 15, 2009

An Interview with Armen Keteyian

It may have been hard to convince this second-generation Armenian
American growing up that he would one day be in charge of a major
network’s investigating unit and have eight Emmy Awards that praise
his integrity, interviewing skills, and versatility. Add to that his
position as a shortstop in a professional baseball franchise, and he
would think it wasn’t possible. But that is exactly what happened to
him, Armen Keteyian, the chief investigating correspondent of CBS
News.

Born in Detroit, Mich., on March 6, 1953, Keteyian spent most of his
young life playing basketball, football, and baseball. While at Lahser
High School in Bloomfield, he lettered in all three sports and ended
up going to Central Michigan University on a partial sports
scholarship, and later transferred to San Diego State University to
continue his collegiate career.

`Playing shortstop, starting shortstop, first at Central Michigan and
then at San Diego State – I had opportunities to pursuit it, I had a
chance to sign with the Detroit Tigers and try playing pro, but I felt
I couldn’t hit [the ball] well enough. I thought I couldn’t make it. I
was good, but wasn’t good enough – At some point and time you don’t
quit sports-sports quits you. I learned the most from failure and
baseball, which is my biggest failure. I learned from that point on
that you can’t throw away opportunities,’ Keteyian told the
Armenian Weekly.

Though he loved sports, he was an avid reader, and his interest in
writing soon sparked. He wrote for his high school and college
newspapers, and majored in journalism at both Central Michigan and San
Diego State.

Yet, after his transfer to San Diego State, he found himself three
units shy of graduation, so he took an internship helping Frank
Church, the Senator from Idaho, attempt to win the 1976 presidential
campaign.

`I went from an internship volunteer to one of the Senator’s top
advance people-advancing the political events. He won in his first
primary in Nebraska, which I was heavily involved in, then won his
second in Oregon – Then we ran into Jimmy Carter in Ohio and that was
the end of Church’s campaign, but it was a tremendous experience being
around him and the people,’ said Keteyian, who as a result of the
internship graduated that year, cum laude with a BA in journalism and
a minor in political science.

Once in the real world, he found himself, 23, out of school and in
need of a job. `I started at the bottom at a weekly newspaper in La
Mesa, Calif., a suburb of San Diego. Then I worked my way up through a
suburban daily, to writing for the San Diego Union-Tribune, which was
followed by my big break-being hired by Sports Illustrated in New
York. That really catapulted me from being a `beachy’ guy in San
Diego, who had established a pretty good reputation as a writer, to a
completely different culture’ on the national stage, said Keteyian.

But the progression was not so cut, dry, and easy.

`I was writing sports for a daily paper in Escondido, Calif., but left
the business in 1980 because I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to
do. I took a job at a sports-marketing, public relations firm in San
Diego, while writing freelance for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where
I was writing about virtually everything but sports. I was writing
about finance, art auctions, and business-related stories for the
culture section, which I loved. It was great to get away from sports,
which at that point I was beginning to get tired of. But, I did a
sports-related story on a tri-athlete, Julie Moss, which won a
national sports writing award. That convinced Sports Illustrated to
finally hire me in May 1982, after a year of trying to get the job,
sending the head of research in New York clip after clip. I arrived in
June. The family, which at that time was my wife Dede and our first
born Kristen, they came later,’ he said, adding, `I didn’t just drop
into this job or profession, I worked for every ounce.’

>From Sports Illustrated, Keteyian was presented with another chance
to advance and learn. `In 1988, NBC wanted me for the Seoul Korea
Olympics,’ he said. `I took a leave of absence from the magazine,
where at that point I had done many investigative pieces and had a
big-time reputation as an investigative reporter, having worked on
college point shaving [betting against the favored team, after a
bookie bribes the team to lose], steroids, and pay-to-play [bribing a
college player to go to a certain school with money, jewelry, or
cars].’

`I had also recently been promoted. I left that to become the on-air
reporter for NBC’s coverage of the swimming venue. I had an interest
in TV work, I did a good job in Seoul, and some more opportunities
presented themselves, so I left the magazine and went to work for
NBC,’ Keteyian said.

He spent little time at NBC, however. The next year, he left to write
his first of eight books, Big Red Confidential: Inside Nebraska
Football, about Nebraska’s football program under Tom Osborne.

`It was the first book to raise any kind of questions about wrongdoing
within the program. To this day, I don’t think I am the most welcomed
man in Nebraska,’ said a grinning Keteyian.

From the book, ABC was his next stop. `ABC was looking for a
high-level sports reporter who they could turn into a TV
correspondent. I auditioned for the position by sending in my audition
tape, an original story on Major League Baseball umpire Dave Pallone,
who at the time was leaving his job in order to write a book Behind
the Mask, about being in professional baseball and being gay. Thanks
to my friend, who worked at the bar in New York where he often
visited, I was able to sit down with him. It caught people’s attention
and I was given the job where, until I left in 1997, I got basically a
PhD in TV,’ he said.

His transition to CBS came when he was hired to be on HBO’s
`Real Sports’ with Bryant Gumbel. Then CBS hired him as a
special features reporter and, after buying the rights to the National
Football League, gave Keteyian the position of sideline reporter.

`It gave me a whole-other level of exposure,’ reflected Keteyian, who
stayed at CBS Sports as their sideline and special features reporter,
winning three Emmy’s for CBS’s coverage of the Tour de France.

In 2005, on his way back from an Indianapolis Colts’ practice, a call
from CBS Sports/News president Sean McManus opened a brand new door to
him.

`When his assistant told me `Hold for Sean,’ those words, you never
know what will happen after that. But he offered me the position of
chief investigating correspondent of CBS News. I also had the task of
starting an investigating unit from the ground-up,’ said Keteyian.

Despite his high level of success, Keteyian never forgot his
roots. `I was an altar boy at St. Sarkis Church where I also
went to Saturday Armenian School until the 8th grade, until I moved to
Bloomfield Hills. Though my Armenian has stayed in Detroit, I still
know a few words. I host events, like when the Catholicos came, and
other events that help raise money or awareness for the Armenian
community. I feel, purposely, I have kept my fingers, toes, and heart
in the Armenian communities in Detroit, Watertown, and California. I
cook pilaf, my wife, Dede, who is not Armenian, cooks like one. My
kids, Kristen and Kelly, also cook some Armenian dishes.

Whenever they see their cousins in Detroit and are able to see the
culture, they are surprised how good it makes them feel and how
connected they feel – It affects them in a positive way. So, my
Armenian roots are still not only in my blood, but my family’s blood
as well,’ explained Keteyian.

He started his career in 1976, and in 30 years reached the summit of
his profession. How does it feel to have worked so hard for so long?
`It hardly ever felt like work to me,’ he said, smiling.

`My wife and my kids deserve a lot of credit for sticking by me after
all this time. I am a very fortunate guy

-life-of-an-armenian-icon-through-his-own-words/

Armavia Air carrier sees 400,000th passenger in 2009

YEREVAN, August 15. /ARKA/. `Armavia’ air carrier saw its 400,000th
passenger in 2009 on Saturday, the company’s press-service reported.

Passenger Tsira Tigiyeva was flying U8 9045 Yerevan ` Vladikavkaz.

`The passenger was surprised to see plasma TV and flowers from the air
company. Besides her economy class ticket was replaced with business
class one.

The woman thanked `Armavia’ for the surprises as well as for the new
flight ` Yerevan ` Vladikavkaz ` Yerevan, as now she can travel to
European and Middle East countries easily.

According to Director General of `Armavia’ Norayr Belluyan, the company
expands the geography of flights, opens new directions and replenishes
flying stock.

`It is doubly pleasant that the present was received by a passenger of
our new regular flight Yerevan ` Vladikavkaz ` Yerevan,’ Belluyan said.

Passenger traffic of `Armavia’ has increased by 11.5%. `0–

Aysor.am

15.08.2009, 17:19

Not leaving for Turkey will not mean the

If RA President Serzh Sargsyan will not leave for Turkey it will not
disturb the regulation of Armenian – Turkish relations, today said
Lernik Aleqsanyan, the member of Republican Party of Armenia (RPA)
during the press conference, and mentioned that it is difficult to say
whether the President Serzh Sargsyan will leave for Turkey or not.
`The Armenian – Turkish Relations will develop. I think that the
political mind of Armenia will at last come to the conclusion that if
the relations with the neighbors should be, if not friendly at least
not bad’, – mentioned L. Aleqsanyan.
According to the speaker the Turkish side also wishes to establish
good relations with Armenia, and expects that he will not only affirm
its political and economic positions in TranCaucasus but also will
open a new way to the Russian markets.
`Today Turkey has changed its policy especially in the relations with
the USA. Ankara tries to have self dependent policy in our region’, –
he mentioned.
According to the deputy, if the president Sargsyan doesn’t leave for
Turkey for watching the football match between the teams of the two
countries, it will not harm the process of settlement of relations
between Armenia and Turkey seriously.
`It will not mean the `end’ as the president announced very distinctly
that the relations between the two sides should develop without any
preconditions and before his leaving the boarder should be open. In
this respect the disposition of our President is rough’, – said the
RPA representative.

15.08.2009, 17:19
Aysor.am

RUSSIA TO HOLD NORTH-SOUTH TRANSPORT CORRIDOR RALLY

Tehran Times
August 15, 2009

TEHRAN (Press TV) — The Republic of Kalmykia of the Russian Federation
is planning to hold the International North-South Transport Corridor
(INSTC) rally.

The event, which is said to be a rival for the famous Paris-Dakar
rally, will start next year with the aim of introducing and promoting
the North-South Transport Corridor.

A multi modal transportation established by Iran, Russia and India
in St. Petersburg in September 2000, the INSTC connects the Indian
Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran, which is
then connected to St. Petersburg and North Europe via the Russian
Federation.

The INSTC was expanded to include eleven new members, namely
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey,
Ukraine, Belarus, Oman, Syria and Bulgaria.

The rally has been organized and supported by President of the Republic
of Kalmykia K.N. Ilyumzhinov to act as an international symbol for
INSTC and a way to attract international investors to the corridor.

Introducing the Iran path as a safe transportation route from Asia
to Europe and introducing the economical and commercial potentials
of the countries along INSTC are among the other aims of the project.

Organizers hope that the annual rally will introduce the corridor as
a more affordable path, compared to the Suez Canal, for transporting
products from Asia to Europe and back.

International news coverage of the rally by advertising companies and
media will also introduce the corridor as a significant economical
route.

"I AM HUMAN" FILM FESTIVAL SLATED FOR SEPTEMBER
Armen Davtyan

2009/08/13 | 14:35

Culture

With the joint assistance of the "Open Society-Georgia" NGO and the
Heinrich Boll Foundation’s South Caucasus office, Armenia will host
the "I Am Human" film festival in September for the second time.

The three day festival is devoted to the themes of human rights
and peace and will showplace documentary films from around the
world. Film goers will have the opportunity to express their views
during discussion sessions after the showing of each film.

The festival will kick off in the Armenian town of Vayk and continue
on to Vanadzor, Noyemberyan, Kapan and finally Yerevan.

According to festival organizers, out of the 76 films screened for
qualification the best 25 were selected.

Recently film makers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Abkhazia and
South Ossetia gathered in Istanbul. For the first time, Artsakh will
also be participating in the festival.

WEB SITE OF RA ECONOMY MINISTRY NOT BEEN BROKEN BY AZERI HACKERS

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
15.08.2009 12:19 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The economy ministry of Armenia has issued a formal
disclaimer of information, that Azeri hackers allegedly broke the
ministry’s web site.

Stepan Aslanyan, director of Smart systems, on August 13, at the
Armat press center told journalists that the web site of the Armenian
economy ministry and a number of other official sites were hacked on
Friday by Azerbaijanis and have not been recovered until the day of
the press conference.

The ministry of economy of Armenia issued an official statement on the
matter, saying in particular the following: "the ministry of economy
had not been subjected to hackers’ attacks, including Azerbaijani,
and hasn’t been broken. The content on this site remained unchanged."

On August 14 web site within two hours was not
accessible due to some technical problems, which were quickly resolved
by professionals, the disclaimer said.

These problems, as noted in ministry’s disclaimer, could not negatively
affect visitors. Official website of the Ministry of Economy of
Armenia continues to operate smoothly.