WORKING GROUP OF ARMENIAN OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICE MEETS WITH PRISONERS
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Aug 2 2006
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. Working group of the Armenian Ombudsman’s
Office met with several life-term prisoners in “Nubarashen” prison
last Thursday.
The press service and public relations department of the Armenian
Ombudsman reported that the prisoners expressed their discontent both
with their sentences and inadequate treatment in the prison.
Accoridng to the prisoners’ complaints, the prison administration
were given clear instructions to correct the situation related to
periodic medical examination and care, and also organization of walks
and supply of necessary consumer accessories.
Warden of “Nubarashen” prison Aram Sargsyan promised to do his utmost
to overcome the abovementioned problems, which will be later evaluated
by this working group during its next visit.
The prison administration immediately provided the workign group
members an opportunity for individual meetings with the prisoners,
who went on a hunger-strike. R.O. -0–

ARMENIA, EGYPT INTEND TO DEVELOP COOPERATION IN AGRICULTURE AREA
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Aug 2 2006
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. Armenia and Egypt intend to develop
cooperation in agriculture area.
Armenian Foreign Ministry press service reports that the issues
related to bilateral cooperation were discussed during Armenian Deputy
Agriculture Minister Samvel Galstyan recent visit to Egypt.
He was in Egypt between July 25 and 30 and met with Egyptian
Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza and discussed prospects of cooperation
with him.
Galstyan confirmed invitation of Abaz for Agro-Forum, which will
launch in September. M.V.-0—

DEALS ON U.S. DOLLAR SALE/PURCHASE TOTALS $21.7MLN AT ARMENIAN STOCK EXCHANGE IN JULY 2006
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Aug 2 2006
YEREVAN, August 2. /ARKA/. Deals on U.S. dollar sale and purchase
totaled $21.7mln or AMD 9.06bln at Armenian Stock Exchange auction
in July 2006.
ARKA News Agency’s analysis grounded on the Stock Exchange’s
information showed that this result is 1.33 times smaller than that
of June 2006 – $28.9mln or AMD 12.09bln.
The U.S. currency exchange rate ranged between AMD 410.55 and AMD
418.7 for $1 that month.
No deals on euro were made at the mentioned period.
Armenian Stock Exchange received its license for auctions organization
from Central Bank of Armenia on November 7, 2005.
Today CBA set following exchange rates: $1=AMD 413.33, 1euro=AMD
527.7. M.V. -0—-
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

REINSURER PAYS $28 MLN COMPENSATION FOR AIRBUS DESTROYED BY FIRE
Prime-Tass English-language Business Newswire
August 2, 2006 Wednesday 7:24 PM EET
Russian reinsurance company Leksgarant has paid U.S. $28 million in
compensation for an Airbus A320 that was totally destroyed in a
hangar fire at the Brussels Airport on May 5, the reinsurer said in a
press release Wednesday.
Of the total, the company paid $2 million to the owner of the
aircraft and $26 million to International Armenian Airlines, the
operator of the plane.

UN WORLD FOOD PROGRAM TO CONTINUE COOPERATION WITH ARMENIAN GOVT
ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
August 2, 2006 Wednesday 03:45 PM EST
by Tigran Liloyan
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is ready to continue
cooperation with the government of Armenia to enlarge it and put it
on a more stable basis, WFP Executive Director James Morris said on
Wednesday during his meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian.
Morris is visiting Armenia as part of his regional trip, the
governmental press service told Itar-Tass.
The WFP executive director pointed out the economic growth of the
country and Armenian authorities’ efforts aimed at overcoming poverty.
Prime Minister Margarian highly appreciated the WFP activity that
began in September 1993.
According to him, for 13 years of its work in Armenia, the WFP has made
a substantial contribution to the improvement of the food situation
of the poorest population groups in the country, including refugees,
as well as to the development of communities by investing in the
enhancement of infrastructures and human resources.
Over this period of time, a total of 134,000 tonnes of humanitarian
food worth 75 million U.S. dollars were delivered to Armenia to cater
to the needs of about 200,000 people on an average annually.
The premier said that replacing emergency food programmes with
long-term programmes from mid-1999 was very important for his country.
In connection with the drought that affected some regions in Armenia,
the prime minister asked the WFP executive director to assist the
republic in coping with the consequences of the disaster.
Margarian also thanked the WFP leadership for the emergency aid that
the country received from the Programme during the drought of 2000.
This aid became the significant support for those farmsteads that
were affected by that drought, he said.

ROSELLA KURKJIAN, A FONT OF KNOWLEDGE, GOOD CHEER IN NEWSROOM
The Boston Globe
August 02, 2006 Wednesday
THIRD EDITION
BY GLORIA NEGRI, GLOBE STAFF
Rosella (Gureghian) Kurkjian never got bylines or front-page stories
but still loved her job as a newspaper librarian for more than
25 years. In turn, she was beloved by the editors, photographers,
and reporters she assisted in researching stories, not only for her
expertise but for the smile that always greeted them.
“Rosella was really a gem,” Andrew Gully, a former Boston Herald
managing editor, said yesterday. “You could not walk into the library
without her brightening your day. She was always there, always with
a smile. She was an amazing resource for thousands of editors and
reporters. The readers of the Boston Herald never knew Rosella, but
when they put their 50 cents in the box, they saw the result of her
work every day.”
Mrs. Kurkjian, who retired from library work in 1993 but not from
her interest in newspapers and the people who put them together,
died Sunday of lung disease at her Watertown home. She was 89. She
also had a home in Manomet.
“When Rosella retired, a whole era went with her,” said James Mac
Laughlin of Westwood, former Herald deputy managing editor.
Mrs. Kurkjian first worked for the Boston Herald Traveler in the
1960s. She joined the library staff of the Boston Record American in
1968 and stayed on when the Traveler and the Record American became
the Hearst-owned Herald American on Harrison Avenue in 1972. In 1982,
Rupert Murdoch bought the newspaper and renamed it the Boston Herald.
Colleagues recalled Mrs. Kurkjian’s photographic memory for the
stories she clipped and filed daily, work now done by computers. She
could retrieve them in minutes and suggest others on the same subject.
“Rosella was a one-person Factiva before the Internet,” said reporter
Brian Mooney, referring to the Web database used in newspapers across
the country. Mooney, a Globe reporter, used to work at the Herald.
Her former boss, John Cronin, now a librarian at Winthrop Public
Library, recalled her “prodigious memory for news stories.”
“Rosella was very adept at finding nuggets of information that really
enriched a reporter’s story,” he said.
Though she was an ace at her job, she once told her daughter Karolyn
Kurkjian-Jones of Boston she would have liked to be an opera singer,
and failing that, a market investor, a field in which she became
skilled.
“My mother was a human dynamo,” said Kurkjian-Jones.
Mrs. Kurkjian’s motherly caring for co-workers was also legendary the
“petite lady with a big smile and a bigger heart,” Gully called her.
Anyone with a problem could take it to Mrs. Kurkjian. When one reporter
admired a vest she wore, she took it off and insisted the woman take
it. An editor admired her earrings, and she did the same.
Co-workers enjoyed her home-baked Armenian pastries.
Globe reporter Shelley Murphy, who also had worked at the Herald,
recalled “running to the library in a crazy rush, trying to get clips
on deadline. Rosella would always be there, smiling, cheerful, calm.
And, if you looked really frazzled, she’d sit you down with that
look of concern and say, `How are you doing, dear? And how is your
family?’ ”
Globe night editor David Jrolf recalled when he worked on Harrison
Avenue and “in the middle of a wild day in the Herald newsroom with
people yelling and fighting over some forgotten big story, she came
out and brought a plate of warm cookies to me and others. It was
typical Rosella.”
If there was something Mrs. Kurkjian loved more than her work, it
was family, said her daughter, Elizabeth Kurkjian-Henry of Winchester.
“Her family was the most important thing to her, but not the only
thing in her life.”
Her son, Stephen, Boston Globe senior assistant metro editor, said
her own close-knit family and her newspaper family were all one to her.
“She loved her job,” he said. “Not just making the money. She loved
the interaction she had with people, the feeling that she was part
of a team producing something.”
“She would go to the ends of the earth to get information for a
reporter or editor,” he said, sometimes calling him or his sisters
to make certain she hadn’t overlooked a source.
Mrs. Kurkjian was born in Boston to Manoog and Elizabeth (Kasparian)
Gureghian, immigrants from Armenia. She grew up in Dorchester during
the Depression and went to work at age 16 while attending high
school. At the time, her son said, she was the only family member
who held a job.
After high school, Mrs. Kurkjian graduated from Boston Business
School. She also had a title under her belt, from winning a beauty
pageant in Boston’s Armenian community.
She met Anooshavan Kurkjian, who was a noted commercial portrait
artist, at a dance at an Armenian social club in Watertown. They
were married on Sept. 18, 1938, as the Great New England Hurricane
approached the Eastern Seaboard.
Mrs. Kurkjian did not forget the Depression years and remained frugal,
her son said. Once while traveling in a taxi near the Herald, he saw
his mother walking to the T station. He had to coax her to ride with
him because she thought it too extravagant.
Mrs. Kurkjian’s husband picked her up at the office frequently,
however. “Sometimes if there were a breaking news story she would
tell him to go back and sit in his car,” said Cronin. She wouldn’t
leave work until her mission was accomplished.
They were married 66 years when Mr. Kurkjian died in 2004.
After she retired, Mrs. Kurkjian did volunteer work at Mount Auburn
Hospital for eight years.
In addition to her daughters and son, Mrs. Kurkjian leaves a brother,
Richard Gureghian of Florida; a sister, Isabelle Totovian of Watertown;
and six grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Holy Trinity
Armenian Apostolic Church in Cambridge. Burial will be at Mount Auburn
Cemetery in Cambridge.
One of her favorite sayings, her children said, was “Portia Faces
Life,” the name of an early radio show. In it, the heroine faced any
adversity head-on and with aplomb.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

GBGD: TO ACQUIRE 100% OF TUKHMANUK MINE IN ARMENIA
Knobias.com
August 2, 2006 Wednesday 4:45 PM Eastern Time
Global Gold Corporation (GBGD) announced the planned acquisition of
the remaining 49% of Mego-Gold, LLC, the company holding the licenses
to the Tukhmanuk mine and exploration areas in Armenia. According
to the August 1, 2005 acquisition agreement, Global Gold Mining,
LLC acquired a 51% interest for $1.5 million and was to pay another
$2 million by August 1, 2007; the agreement, amended as of July 19,
2006, allows for the acquisition of the remaining 49% in exchange
for $1 million and 500,000 shares of Global Gold Corporation’s stock.
GET KNOBIAS IN REAL-TIME: Delivery of this proprietary Knobias alert
has been delayed by at least 10 minutes. To get all Knobias alerts
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ARMENIA DEFLATION AT 0.7% IN JULY, INFLATION AT 3.6% IN 7 MTHS
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire
August 2, 2006 Wednesday 6:47 PM MSK
Armenia posted deflation of 0.7% in July, while inflation was 3.6%
since the beginning of the year, the National Statistics Service
told Interfax.
Foodstuffs, including alcohol and tobacco products, grew 3.9% in prices
in the seven months. Non-foodstuff rose 2.2% and service tariffs were
up 4%.
According to the federal budget, Armenia expects inflation to be 3%
in 2006. Armenia had deflation of 0.2% in 2005.

CONDUCTOR LORIS CHGNAVORIAN SPEAKS FOR KEEPING RA PRESENT HYMN
TEHRAN, AUGUST 2, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Famous conductor
and composer Loris Chgnavorian sent a letter of complaint to Hasmik
Poghosian, the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Armenia, on
the occasion of change of the RA hymn and the competition announced
for a new hymn. The Tehran Armenian “Alik” daily informs about it,
mentioning L.Chganvorian’s great contribution in 1991 in the affair of
proclaiming the “Mer Hayrenik” (Our Fatherland) hymn as the RA national
hymn. To judge from the letter, L.Chgnavorian presented a claim for
participation in the competition, by sending a little changed variant
of the present hymn (“Mer Hayrenik” Our Fatherland). It is particularly
said in the letter dated for July 26: “Dear Mrs.Poghosian, I address to
You on the occasion of a too important issue for our people, the hymn
of the Republic of Armenia. I propose for the announced competition the
acting “Mer Hayrenik” anthem of the Republic of Armenia and present
attached to the letter the notes and the recording. I propose it as
it has a national and historic meaning.
I want to stress that it has never been sung with the “wretched,
ownerless” (“tshvar, anter”) text, but our fighters (fidayi, in
Armenian war of liberation against the Turks) and heros sang it with
the text “everywhere death is one” (amenayn tegh mah mi e) for example
in the 1915 Van heroic war and our May 26 battle, the result of what
is our Armenia of today. It has been the hymn of two republics,
1918 and 1991, and has never been sung with the text “wretched,
ownerless.” I must also stress that “Mer Hayrenik” is national and
revolutionary music and has a wonderful soul and stragers are fond
of it as well. I have a hope that pages of the history will not be
changed by competitions.
Giving preference to “Mer Hayrenik” and taking into account that my
colleagues participate in this competition, I want to participate with
them with the work written on my words and music. I present attached
to the letter the notes and recording of my work as well.”

CBA RAISES REFINANCING RATE BY 0.25 PERCENTAGE POINTS
YEREVAN, AUGUST 1, NOYAN TAPAN. At the July 31 sitting, the Central
Bank of Armenia (CBA) Board made a decision to raise the refinancing
(repo) interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.25%, presenting
this step as a measure aimed at neutralizing the inflation risks. This
is a second change of such a kind this year after the refinancing rate
was raised from 3.5% to 4% in January. According to the CBA Board, the
registration of a two-digit economic growth is entirely realistic under
conditions of the continuing tendencies of the economic development,
however, the risks of deviating from the target index of 3% inflation
remain, and “their manifestation is becoming more likely”.
According to a CBA press release, there are risks that international
prices of raw materials, particularly oil products and metals may
grow above the expected level, which is mainly conditioned by a
possible depreciation of the US dollar and further straining of the
geopolitical situation. A growth in the prices of grain imported into
Armenia is also possible in connection with an expected harvest decline
in Russia and Ukraine. Most proportional growth in the incomes of
the construction and service sectors at a higher rate than envisaged
may also create risks of exceeding the target inflation index. The
anticipated considerable budget expenditures until late 2006 may
contribute to inflation as well, which will become evident in the first
half of 2007. Yet another factor is the increase in the water supply
and sewerage tariffs on July 1, 2006. Therefore, the CBA Board does
not exclude another change in the interest rates in the coming months.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress