Author: Tambiyan Samvel

CENTRAL BANK OF ARMENIA RELEASES DRAM’S RATE

Interfax
March 3 2009
Russia

The Central Bank of Armenia is now limiting its interventions on the
domestic currency market and returning to a floating rate for the
dram, Central Bank Chairman Artur Dzhavadian said at apres conference
on Tuesday.

According to the Central Bank’s forecasts, the average rate of the
U.S. dollar throughout 2009 will increase to 360-380 dram/$1 against
307 dram, he said. Dzhavadian added that this would allow for an
optimal rate that substantially raises Armenia’s competitiveness on
the world market.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) believes that the real rate
of the dollar to the dram in 2009 will increase faster than the
Central Bank’s forecast. The IMF’s representative in Armenia, Nienke
Oomes, expressed this opinion at a press conference in Yerevan while
commenting on the Central Bank’s decision to return to a floating
rate for the national currency.

Oomes added that the dram was currently overvalued and that its rate
had been strengthened more than necessary. She added that the Central
Bank’s forecast regarding the limit of the dram’s decline was too
optimistic for 2009.

She also said that the IMF had made a recommendation to the Central
Bank to restrain the dram if it falls too far. If this happens,
the Central Bank will use a portion of funds from an upcoming $540
million IMF loan, which would be put into replenishing the bank’s
currency reserves.

Oomes said that the floating rate would allow Armenia to step up
exports and maintain its economy while also creating new jobs.

She said that the IMF was very satisfied with the Central Bank’s
decision.

The Central Bank of Armenia has for a long time restrained the rate of
the dram vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar through currency interventions. As
a result, the dollar has held at 305-307 dram throughout 2008 and
the start of 2009.

According to an Interfax correspondent, the rate of the dollar rose
on Tuesday to 340-390 dram/$1 and was continuing to rise.

CHANGES SHOULD BE MADE IN TAX AND BUDGETARY POLICY WITH AIM OF AVOIDING INFLATION RISKS

Noyan Tapan

M arch 4, 2009

YEREVAN, MARCH 4, NOYAN TAPAN. In order to avoid inflation risks
in case of a floating exchange rate, changes should be made in the
tax and budgetary policy. That is, as economist Andranik Tevanian
stated at the March 4 press conference, it is necessary to change the
structure of the budget, reducing both the revenues and expenditures by
20%. Besides, the economist proposed to withdraw cash registers from
use, introduce fixed payments, and only after ensuring a competition
field, to use cash registers again.

In his words, the bases of the financial crisis in Armenia were laid
in 2007 when the Republican Party of Armenia took the whole control
package from the National Assembly, changing the economic policy,
after which expenditures of the budget increased from 1.7 billion
USD to 2.5 billion USD. The next year the expenditures have amounted
to 3.1 billion USD, which is a heavier tax burden on businessmen,
especially on small and medium ones.

As a result of this policy, according to A. Tevanian, the small
and medium business has found itself in a hard situation in 2008,
and since the second half of 2008, there has been a decline in the
amount of remittances to Armenia, construction volumes, etc. "2009
will be a hard year for small and medium businessmen. The economic
crisis has no relation to it, this is a consequence of redistribution
of the economy," A. Tevanian underlined, adding that "there is also
a smell of criminals in the air".

GREPPIN TALKS EARLY URARTIAN INFLUENCE ON ARMENIA THURSDAY

Belmont Citizen-Herald
March 3 2009
MA

Belmont, Mass. – Prof. John A. C. Greppin of Cleveland State
University will give a lecture on "The Urartian Influence on the
Earliest Armenians," at 8 p.m. on Thursday, March 5, at the National
Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395
Concord Ave. in Belmont.

It is now well known that the Urartians preceded the Armenians in the
South Caucasus and that they influenced the Armenians who followed them
for at least two centuries until the arrival of the Persians under
Darius in about 525 B.C. The Armenians learned from the Urartians
their wine skills, an important cultural influence. They assuredly
learned other agricultural skills in grain crops and especially in
irrigation methods for which the Urartians were famous.

But the Urartian influence went deeper and left a linguistic substratum
in the Armenian language that has been known about for over 60 years,
following the initial scholarly investigations of Grigor Ghapantsian
in Yerevan. Prof. Greppin will focus on the linguistic relationships
between these two ancient peoples and will touch upon cultural and
other connections.

John A. C. Greppin is professor of linguistics at Cleveland State
University in Ohio where he has taught for the past 34 years. He
received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1972 in Indo-European Studies,
and through his work with the late Prof. Avedis Sanjian developed a
specialty in Classical Armenian. He is the author of 14 books and some
500 articles and reviews on the Armenian language and other subjects
and has served as the editor of the Annual of Armenian Linguistics
and the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies and was managing
editor of Raft: A Journal of Armenian Poetry.

Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR
Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the
U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and
in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 8 p.m.

More information about the lecture is available by calling
617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing [email protected], or writing
to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.

WORLD BANK EXPRESSES ITS SUPPORT TO THE RETURN TO FLEXIBLE EXCHANGE RATE REGIME IN ARMENIA

AZG DAILY
04-03-2009

Economy

The World Bank expressed its support to the return to a flexible
exchange rate regime announced by the Central Bank of Armenia and the
accompanying policy measures to support this transition. An official
from the Armenian office of the World Bank informed Armenpress
that the adjustment of the exchange rate is necessary in order to
strengthen Armenia’s competitiveness and mitigate the impact of the
negative external shocks that the economy is facing in a difficult
international economic environment. A flexible exchange rate regime
is a key building block of the comprehensive economic policy program
put in place by the Armenian authorities to cope with the impact of
the global economic crisis.

The adjustment of the exchange rate will help Armenian companies
to compete more successfully in global and domestic markets and
will pave the way for high and sustained growth. According to the
WB’s information, Armenia is facing the global economic crisis with
strong defense lines, thanks to prudent macroeconomic management,
a low level of public debt, and a sound banking system.

"OUR VICTORIES"

"Noravank" Foundation
27 February 2009

The viability of any civilization, alongside with other factors, is
determined by the high level of the military thought and, of course,
by the will and the ability to fight and to win. In this context the
history of Armenian civilization is not an exception; it is also the
continuous integrity of military art and victories. Meanwhile, it
should be accepted that in spite of the valuable historical evidences
and separate contemporary researches, the systematized analytical
history of our victories had not been covered and presented to the
Armenian and international community. In our opinion this is omission
not only from the point of view of Armenian historiography. Providing
the community with the information on Armenian military art will
inevitably boost the formation of large-minded and victorious identity
of contemporary Armeniancy free of psychological complexes. Mainly
this circumstances and problems compelled us to start on this project
entitled "Our victories".

Within the framework of that project "Our victories" four-volume
edition is publishing. It is going to be a background for the creation
of the Armenian military art encyclopedia. It is intended to translate
those publications in order to present our military art to foreign
speaking community. There is also an intention to accept those works as
a basis for the creation20of different digital and electronic formats.

The first volume, which is a result of triennial work of the writing
staff, covers the historical period since the 3rd millennium BC till
the 3rd century AC. In the near future the second volume of "Our
victories" will be published. It will be devoted to the military
developments of the 4th-10th centuries. At the same the third
(11th-17th centuries) and forth volumes are in preparation. Our
glorious and convincing victories in war in Artsakh will also be
presented in the last volume.

It is obvious that the omissions in such a large-scale project are
inevitable. This mainly concerns the period of the 3rd and the 2nd
millenniums where we have a certain lack of evidences. Anyway we
are expecting both remarks and assistance in the implementation of
the project.

The book "Our victories" can be purchased in "Book world" (address:
20 Mashtots Ave. Yerevan) and "Noyan Tapan" (Hanrapetutyan Square,
Government House 2) bookstores.

YURI MERZLYAKOV: "OBJECTIVE CONDITIONS FOR RESOLUTION OF THE KARABAKH CONFLICT ARE CREATED WHILE SUBJECTIVE CONDITIONS ARE NOT QUITE AVAILABLE"

Today.Az

Marc h 2 2009
Azerbaijan

OSCE MG co-chairs met Saturday evening with head of the Karabakh
separatists Bako Saakyan.

After the meeting Russian co-chair of the Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov
considers that there have been created objective conditions for the
resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

Answering the question about possible achievements in the resolution
process in 2009 the Russian co-chair said it is always difficult to
give time forecasts and he cannot say what will happen in 2009.

"Objective conditions for the resolution of the Karabakh conflict
are created while subjective conditions are not quite available",
said Merzlyajkov explaining that the subjective conditions imply the
political will of the parties on adoption of decisions, which are
sometimes difficult but still important.

Merzlyakov assessed the meeting with Saakyan as constructive. He
said during the meeting the co-chair tried to inform the Karabakh
president about the recent meeting with presidents of Armenia and
Azerbaijan in Zurich and the new opportunities they saw by results
of this meeting and also shared their impressions and ideas.

The Russian co-chair also announced that "President" of "Nagorno
Karabakh" "provided wide useful information and there were definite
issues on definite projects and the conversation was not in vain".

The Russian diplomat did not specify the details of the meeting with
head of the Karabakh separatist regime noting that "we never speak
about this".

The Russian co-chair also condemned the recent incident during the next
OSCE monitoring on the contact line of the Armenian and Azerbaijani
forces, saying "it shouldn’t have happened.

FOUR VERSIONS OF MHERYAN’S MURDER

Lragir.am
17:55:22 – 27/02/2009

The assassination of the Deputy Chief of the Police Gevorg Mheryan was
a blow both to the Police and to the State and its revelation is a
matter of honor for the Police and the State, told the reporters the
Chief of the Police Alik Sargsyan on February 27 noting that the
investigation of that crime is under his personal control and a group
of professionals work on it. Alik Sargsyan did not go into details
about the process of investigation noting that they work on 4 possible
versions of the case and they need a little time. Alik Sargsyan did not
say when he is going to hold the next press conference but extended
hope that during the next conference he will have more concrete
information and will be able to say which of 4 versions is excluded and
which one they focus their attention on. Alik Sargsryan ensured that
they will do everything to reveal the case as it is a matter of honor
for them.

By the way, he also asked time for revealing the violations towards
reporters when one of the reporters said that the revelation of
violations against reporters is a matter of honor for them. Alik
Sargsyan said that no violation against reporters will remain
unrevealed just a little time is needed.

Public Television of Armenia
Feb 27 2009

Armenian president, head of church discuss cooperation

[Presenter] The church and the state need to complement each other,
the country’s leader has said when meeting with the Armenian
catholicos and the members of the Supreme Religious Council who were
accompanying him.

Serzh Sargsyan and Garegin II spoke about cooperation between the
state and the church. Sargsyan said that having a statehood and
brining the people to some stage does not diminish the role of the
church because new challenges emerge, and the state and the church
should share same opinions to meet those challenges. The state will
largely need the support of our church in representing Armenia’s
issues and interest and when cooperation with the diaspora, Sargsyan
said. He added that the state will continue to support the religious,
cultural, charity and educational institutions under the Armenian
Apostolic church and the preservation of cultural monuments.

The parties spoke about the problems that the Georgia’s Armenians
currently face as well as the seeding of the Armenian values among
those Armenians that follow other religions both in Armenia and
abroad.

ANC-PAC ENDORSES ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA FOR MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES

armradio.am
28.02.2009 15:02

The Armenian National Committee – Political Action Committee (ANC-PAC)
announced this week its endorsement of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa for the upcoming March 3rd LA city elections.

"The ANC-PAC is pleased to endorse Mayor Villaraigosa who has been
a steadfast and vocal supporter of issues of concern to the Armenian
American community," said ANC-PAC chairperson, Armen Martin.

In 2007, at the urging and support of Mayor Villaraigosa, the
Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution urging the House of
Representatives to pass H. Res. 106. His support of the resolution made
him a target of the Turkish Consul General of Los Angeles who sent
the mayor a letter and provided Turkish government pseudo-academic
propaganda in order to pressure him into changing his stance. In
response, Mayor Villaraigosa donated the books to the community for
educational purposes along with a letter to the Turkish Consul General
reiterating his support for Armenian Genocide recognition.

In 1994, Villaraigosa was elected to the California State Assembly;
four years later, his colleagues elected him the first Assembly
Speaker from Los Angeles in 25 years.

During his tenure in the State Assembly, Villaraigosa was a consistent
supporter of Armenian Genocide recognition resolutions and other
bills of importance to the Armenian community. After serving as
Speaker, Villaraigosa served as a member of the Los Angeles City
Council where championed official where he continued his Armenian
Genocide affirmation and supported community efforts to create a Los
Angeles-Yerevan Sister City relationship.

During the 2004 Presidential election season, Villaraigosa was selected
by then Democratic Presidential Nominee Senator John Kerry to chair
the Democratic Party Platform Committee. As Chair of the Platform
Committee, Villaraigosa led the effort to include Armenian Genocide
affirmation and Nagorno-Karabakh self-determination language as part
of the Platform.

PRESS RELEASE
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR)
395 Concord Ave.
Belmont, MA 02478
Tel.: 617-489-1610
Email: [email protected]

TALK ON URARTIAN INFLUENCE ON ARMENIA AT NAASR BY PROF. JOHN GREPPIN

Prof. John A. C. Greppin of Cleveland State University will give a
lecture on "The Urartian Influence on the Earliest Armenians," on
Thursday, March 5, at 8:00 p.m., at the National Association for
Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont,
MA.

It is now well known that the Urartians preceded the Armenians in the
South Caucasus and that they influenced the Armenians who followed them
for at least two centuries until the arrival of the Persians under
Darius in about 525 B.C. The Armenians learned from the Urartians their
wine skills, an important cultural influence. They assuredly learned
other agricultural skills in grain crops and especially in irrigation
methods for which the Urartians were famous.

But the Urartian influence went deeper and left a linguistic substratum
in the Armenian language that has been known about for over 60 years,
following the initial scholarly investigations of Grigor Ghapantsian in
Yerevan. Prof. Greppin will focus on the linguistic relationships
between these two ancient peoples and will touch upon cultural and other
connections.

John A. C. Greppin is professor of linguistics at Cleveland State
University in Ohio where he has taught for the past 34 years. He
received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1972 in Indo-European Studies, and
through his work with the late Prof. Avedis Sanjian developed a
specialty in Classical Armenian. He is the author of 14 books and some
500 articles and reviews on the Armenian language and other subjects and
has served as the editor of the Annual of Armenian Linguistics and the
Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies and was managing editor of
Raft: A Journal of Armenian Poetry.

The NAASR Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next
to the U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building
and in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 8:00 p.m.

More information about the lecture is available by calling 617-489-1610,
faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing [email protected], or writing to NAASR, 395
Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.