MPS THAT WITHDREW FROM “ORINATS YERKIR” FACTION INTEND TO CREATE A NEW PARLIAMENTARY GROUP
ArmRadio.am
25.05.2006 14:28
The businessmen MPs that withdrew from “Orinats Yerkir” faction
declared about their intention to create a new group.
“Having common views on the development of our country, we create the
” Businessman” Parliamentary group to more effectively utilize our
capacities for participating in the development of the political life
of the state, development of free economic relations and reinforcement
democratic values,” their statement says.
Grigor Margaryan has been elected head of the group. Mekhak Mkhitaryan
will be the secretary of the group. The statement was signed by Grigor
Margaryan, Mekhak Mkhitaryan, Sayad Zakharyan, Eduard Gabrielyan,
Samvel Shahgaldyan, Arshak Mkhitaryan, Alexan Petrosyan, Tigram
Yeganyan, Arkadi Hambardsumyan and Artak Sargsyan.
11 Deputies withdrew from “Orinats Yerkir.” Melik Manukyan did not
join the “Businessman” group.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS TO ISSUE A STATEMENT
ArmRadio.am
25.05.2006 12:20
This evening OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will issue a statement on
the results of their visit to Armenia.
The delegation of mediators arrived in the region on May 24, and a
similar statement was issued yesterday in Baku.
To remind, the Co-Chairs arrives in the region accompanied by Russian
Deputy Foreign Minister Grigori Karasin, US Deputy Assistant Secretary
of State Daniel Fried and Director on Political Issue of the French
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Stanislas de Laboulaye.

GOVERNMENT FOCUSES ON IRRIGATION POLICIES
Srbuhi Vanian
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
25 May 2006
The NKR government has launched a policy on the use of water resources
with a special focus on the system of irrigation. The policy provides
for an annual 3-4 billion drams of investments in capital building
programmes. In this sphere no building has been carried out since the
Soviet years. Since 1999 there has been some reconstruction in the
irrigation system, namely the water pipeline of Askeran and Khramort,
a pumping station was built in the village of Talish. The government
has worked out a number of projects, based on economic and scientific
research, which are expected to spur agriculture. “Along with a purely
agricultural importance the improvement of the irrigation system has a
national importance too, since the shortage of irrigation water reduces
crop yield and increases the cost of price of produce,” said Vahram
Baghdassarian, the minister of agriculture. “With the implementation
of irrigation programmes launched in Armenia in the framework of the
Millennium Challenge programme in 2006 (an increase in the volume of
agricultural production and dropping cost of price is estimated in
Armenia in the upcoming two or three years) we will be having serious
problems on the markets of agricultural production because Karabakh
will not be competitive. Therefore, the government set a goal to speed
up the implementation of irrigation projects,” stated the minister of
agriculture of NKR. In 2005-2006 the Nor Seysulan – Nor Aygestan and
Khachen – Khramort – Khanabad water pipelines were repaired, currently
the Khachen – Martakert pipeline is reconstructed. Besides, the water
of the river Tartar will be transported to the plains of Martakert
to irrigate over 7 thousand hectares of land. The government policy
will enable to store about 70-90 million cu m of water annually and to
solve the problem of drinking and irrigation water fundamentally. A
32 km water pipeline will be built from the source located 6 km from
Yerek Mankunk Church to Martakert. This pipeline will supply water
to the town of Martakert and the adjacent 6 rural communities. The
23 million cu m reservoir in Askeran will allow irrigating over 5
thousand hectares of land in the regions of Askeran and Martuni. In the
current year it is foreseen to join the river Trgeh to the reservoir
of Sarsang and reconstruct infrastructures. The policy also includes
the Arjagbyur – Hadrut and the Khonashen – Martuni water pipelines,
the reservoir and pipeline of Stepanakert, construction of pipelines
of Varanda, Arakel, Amaras. This is a costly programme, and besides
the budget funds part of the costs will be covered by electricity
generation. An energy programme will be implemented in 2006. Along
with the diversion of the river Trgeh 3 small water power plants
will be built on the pipeline. The minister of agriculture Vahram
Baghdasarian said these plants are going to generate 50 million kWt
of energy annually. The irrigation improvement policy will involve
benefactors and foreign investors as well. For the distribution of
water to farmers and households, the experience of Armenia will be
used, setting up local water supply stations.

TAX ALLOWANCES FOSTER DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Srbuhi Vanian
Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
25 May 2006
Speaking about the tax policy on agriculture, an NKR State Tax Agency
official said it is designed to foster development of agriculture. The
policy provides for tax allowances to promote agribusiness. Producers
and processors of agricultural production, as well as traders in
chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, seeds and seedlings are exempt
from VAT. Taxpayers of certain categories are exempt from the profit
tax and the tax on land. Families immigrating to NKR do not pay the
tax on land for five years. Agricultural and forestry engineering
organizations, research and test stations of educational institutions
are granted a 50 percent allowance for tax on land they use for
scientific tests. In answer to our question whether the taxpayers of
this sector ever lodge complaints with the tax agency we were told
that the agency has not received any letters of complaint so far.

“ABSURDISTAN”
by Tim McNulty, Special to The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times
May 14, 2006 Sunday
Fourth Edition
Players in the fields of oil;
The tale of an oligarch’s slacker son trapped in a fictional former
Soviet republic is a wicked satire of post-Cold War greed and ethnic
strife.
by Gary Shteyngart
Random House, 333 pp., $24.95
Russian emigre Gary Shteyngart burst upon the literary scene in
2002 with his rollicking and bitingly satirical debut novel, “The
Russian Debutante’s Handbook.” Its hero, like its author, was born
in Communist Leningrad, raised in Reagan ’80s America and flounders
about wildly in the turgid cultural gulf between them.
Misha Vainberg, the self-absorbed hero of Shteyngart’s hilarious
new novel, “Absurdistan,” is also a misplaced Russian. His comic
misadventures on two continents bring post-Soviet Russia and corporate
America into the crosshairs of the author’s outlandish wit.
“Absurdistan” is a brilliant, fast-paced and idiosyncratic novel
that swerves frighteningly close to dead-on political reporting. It
is black humor at its darkest.
Vainberg (aka “Snack Daddy” for his vast appetites) is the 325-pound,
melancholic son of a Russian mobster and oligarch (the 1,238th richest
man in Russia). Misha was educated at “Accidental College” in the
American Midwest but finds his true home in a Wall Street loft in
slacker Manhattan with his voluptuous South Bronx girlfriend, Rouenna.
There is no reason for Misha to return to St. Petersburg, with its
“bizarre peasant huts fashioned out of corrugated metal and plywood
colonizing the broad avenues.” But his “Beloved Papa” misses him,
so he goes. When Papa assassinates an Oklahoma businessman over a
percentage stake in a nutria farm, and then gets whacked himself
(for other, unrelated business dealings), Misha’s world constricts.
Denied a visa to re-enter the U.S., he is forced by circumstance to
travel to Absurdistan, a small, desperately poor but oil-rich fiefdom
wedged against the Caspian Sea. His singular mission there is to
purchase a phony European passport from a crooked Belgian consular
official (price: $240,000).
Life in Absurdistan takes an unfortunate turn for Misha shortly
after he checks in to his penthouse suite at the Hyatt. He finds
himself surrounded by Texas oilmen, Halliburton contractors and the
busy minions of Kellogg, Brown & Root. Svelte Absurdi hookers ply the
hallways, their faces “as powdered as an American doughnut.” The view
from his suite, however, is over rusted oil derricks and the brown,
alkaline shore that hems the capital city. A rock headland across the
bay is honeycombed with drab, concrete Soviet-era apartment complexes
that warehouse Absurdistan’s abundant poorer classes.
When civil war erupts between the ethnic Sevo and Svanï minorities (a
centuries-old religious dispute over the angle of Christ’s footrest
on the cross), Misha is trapped in the city. The inconvenience is
sufferable. He has a good supply of Atavan and the bar is kept stocked
with Johnnie Walker Black. American Express still rules, after all. But
when the governing elites hire Armenian mercenaries to begin shelling
the ethnic neighborhoods from the hotel roof, all hell breaks loose.
Misha is embraced by a garrulous warlord with former KGB ties and
appointed minister of multicultural affairs. Misha’s innocence
throughout all this is rather charming. Oblivious to the political
treachery swirling around him, his only goal is to return to his
darling Rouenna in New York.
It may seem unlikely, but Shteyngart is able to create endearing
characters who draw the reader in despite their shabby pursuits. He
also paints a vivid and brutal picture of the kind of strife that
rakes Third-World oil countries, and he spares no reproach for the
American interests that bleed them, supply the weaponry and profit
from reconstruction.
In fact, there is something disturbingly familiar about Absurdistan.
Shteyngart’s wacky vision of a post-Cold War world sinking beneath
the weight of the American Century is not far from the mark.
Tim McNulty’s most recent book of poetry, “Through High Still Air,”
was published last fall. He lives on the Olympic Peninsula.
Author appearance
Gary Shteyngart will read from “Absurdistan” at 7 p.m. Thursday
at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park (206-366-3333; www.third
placebooks.com).
Salon.com May 1, 2006 Monday
“Absurdistan”
by Laura Miller
In his hilarious follow-up to “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook,”
Gary Shteyngart proves himself to be the post-Soviet era’s own
Joseph Heller.
Post-Soviet life may not need its own Joseph Heller — and chances are
it couldn’t sit still long enough to read his books even if it did —
but it has him all the same in Gary Shteyngart. Shteyngart’s first
novel, “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook,” described the adventures
of Vladimir Girshkin, a Russian Jew who was unhappily transplanted
to the U.S. in his childhood, as he seeks his fortune (and hides out
from mobsters) in the frantically Westernizing Eastern Europe of the
1990s. In Shteyngart’s latest, the hilarious, caustic “Absurdistan,”
another homesick Russian Jew, an obese innocent named Misha Vainberg,
pines for a lost paradise. In Misha’s case, Eden is the South Bronx,
where he once gorged on junk food and canoodled on the stoop with
his beloved Rouenna, a homegirl he hooked up with in a titty bar.
When we meet Misha, however, he’s stuck in St. Petersburg, penning
this book, ostensibly his “love letter to the generals in charge of
the Immigration and Naturalization Service.” He can’t get back into
the States because his father, the 1,238th richest man in Russia,
has shot and killed an Oklahoma businessman “over a 10 percent stake
in a nutria farm” and unlike the freewheeling Russians, the American
authorities don’t take kindly to the sons of murderers. Thanks to
Beloved Papa’s wealth — acquired through assorted dubious enterprises,
including VainBergAir, “an airline without any airplanes but with
plenty of stewardesses” — Misha lives pretty high on the hog. But
he longs for New York and Rouenna, especially when he learns that his
girlfriend has taken up with the detestable emigre Jerry Shteynfarb,
author of a crap novel called “The Russian Arriviste’s Hand Job.”
After Beloved Papa is assassinated by another kingpin, Misha’s
quest to get back to New York leads him on a circuitous, Ativan-
and whiskey-soaked journey to the obscure nation of Absurdistan,
a former Soviet satellite on the Caspian Sea. There he gets caught
up in the rising tensions between the Svani and Sevo, two Sneetchlike
local groups whose primary difference seems to be which way they think
“Christ’s footrest” should tilt on the Orthodox cross. Ensconced in
the Hyatt, where prostitutes roam the hallways, shrieking “Golly
Burton!” every time they think they’ve spotted an employee of a
certain well-connected American service-contracting firm, Misha
forlornly e-mails Rouenna. Eventually, after civil war breaks out in
Absurdistan, he takes up the Sevo cause, praying that for once he’s
on the side of right.
The plot of “Absurdistan,” however, is really just a pretext to
bedazzle the reader with a series of rowdy and blisteringly satirical
vignettes of life in contemporary Russia, the boondocks of Central
Asia and, every so often, the Never-Neverland of America itself.
Courtesy of Beloved Papa, Misha obtained a useless degree in
multicultural studies at “Accidental College,” a private (very)
liberal arts college in the Midwest, from which “a surprising number
of graduates went on to raise organic asparagus along the Oregonian
coast.” This education leaves our hero utterly unprepared for the new
Russia, where he listens to a hired thug (Ruslan the Enforcer) complain
that a rival (Ruslan the Punisher) has stolen the url for his nickname
“Why can’t my website be called … I am
the Enforcer. I know Ruslan the Punisher. He lives with his mother
by the Avtovo metro station. He is a nothing man. Now people will
think that I am him. They won’t hire me to do the bloody work. I
will be humiliated.” Not that Misha doesn’t have a certain kind of
expertise. He arouses an Absurdistani girlfriend, an NYU student on
break and equally enamored of the Big Apple, by reciting Zagat Guide
entries for Manhattan restaurants. To local leaders hoping that the
West will intervene in their conflict, he explains the grim truth:
“No one knows where your country is or who you are. You don’t have
a familiar ethnic cuisine; your diaspora, from what I understand,
is mostly in Southern California, three time zones removed from
the national media in New York; and you don’t have a recognizable,
long-simmering conflict like the one between the Israelis and the
Palestinians, where people in the richer nations can take sides and
argue over the dinner table. The best you can do is get the United
Nations involved, as in East Timor. Maybe they’ll send troops.”
The Sevo appoint Misha to the post of Minister of Multicultural Affairs
(even though they don’t know — or care — what “multicultural” means)
and he begins writing grant proposals to set up a Holocaust museum
in the capital (a bit of a stretch considering that the Nazis never
got as far east as Absurdistan, but the Absurdis think Misha can help
them win the favor of Israel and, thereby, the Americans). Somehow,
everyone Misha meets seems to know everything about him — that he
is a “melancholic and a sophisticate,” and that he slept with his
stepmother a few weeks after his father’s funeral — and finally he
will learn that everyone in Absurdistan knows something about the
civil war that he doesn’t.
In Absurdistan, almost everyone is working some kind of angle
or wearing some kind of disguise, mostly intended to manipulate
the prejudices and ignorance of romantic, patronizing, uniformed
Americans. The hotel manager, an Armenian-American born and raised
in Glendale, Calif., sends out notes in semi-literate English to the
guests, trying to pass himself off as “a wily local instead of some
middle-class brat from the San Fernando Valley.” A Mossad agent posing
as a Texan describes the extensive market research his agency has done
on “how genocides are perceived by the American electorate … We give
these American schmendricks a map of the world and say, ‘Point to the
general area where you think Congo is located.’ Nineteen percent point
to the continent of Africa. Another 23 percent point to either India,
or South America. We count those as correct answers, because Africa,
India, and South America all start out wide and then taper off at the
bottom. So, for our purposes, 42 percent of respondents sort of know
where Congo is.”
Savage, but pretty damn close to the truth. No doubt Shteyngart’s
portrait of life in Russia and “the ‘stans” is equally acute,
not matter how exaggerated it seems. Like Heller’s “Catch-22,”
“Absurdistan” has the feel of a book whose outrageous caricatures
will soon become shorthand for real-life situations. We’re all
Absurdistanis, or will be soon, and can sympathize with the beleaguered
manager of the Park Hyatt Svani City, when he asks, “Why did all this
history have to happen to me?”
–Boundary_(ID_biVGIT729zZoQshUFE614w)–

“MELTEX” LOST AGAIN
ArmRadio.am
25.05.2006 15:52
“Ulis Media” point the majority of points at today’s tender for FM
90.3 radio frequency, featuring “Meltex” and “Ulis Media.” The Company
will present programs about the show business and contemporary culture.
As for the FM 90.7 frequency, from now on it will belong to “Radio
Pro.”
This Company also bet “Meltex” Ltd, which was participating in the
tender for the 12th time.

ALGERIA SIDES WITH TURKEY ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ISSUE
PanARMENIAN.Net
25.05.2006 13:50 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Algeria sides with Turkey on many matters,
including the issue of the Armenian Genocide, Algerian President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika said yesterday at a meeting with Turkish PM
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Bouteflika agrees with Turkey, which “proposes a joint study of
history by academics.”
The Prime Minister reportedly said a European Union decision to
reject Turkey’s possible membership would threaten global peace
and lead to a clash of civilizations, instead of an alliance of
civilizations. Erdogan said that the population living in Europe
is not only Christian, stressing that the EU cannot ignore Muslims
who constitute the second largest group in Europe. “If the EU is to
become a Christian club, it should announce this,” he said.
The Turkish PM noted that Turkey has always asked the EU a question:
What they expect from Turkey? “If the answer is integration we say
“yes” but if it is “assimilation” then our answer is “no.” We want an
understanding based on unity in numbers to come true,” Erdogan added,
reports Turkish Daily News.

ARMENIAN AND RUSSIAN PRESIDENTS HAD TELEPHONE CONVERSATION
PanARMENIAN.Net
25.05.2006 13:24 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Initiated by the Armenian party, Armenian President
Robert Kocharian had a telephone conversation with his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Putin, reports Kremlin Press Service. Robert
Kocharian thanked the Russian party for efficient full-scale
involvement of all services in the search and rescue works after the
crash over the Black Sea and congratulated on the successful completion
of the complicated operation of lifting the flight recorders.
In his turn Vladimir Putin hoped the lifting of flight recorders
would allow clearing out the circumstances of A-320 crash soon.
On the night of May 3 a Yerevan-Sochi flight of Armavia airlines
crashed in the Black Sea 6 km away from Adler airport killing all of
113 passengers, including 6 children and 8 members of the crew. Among
them were 26 Russian citizens, one Ukrainian and one Georgian citizen,
while the rest were Armenian citizens.

ARMENIAN SPECIALISTS LEFT FOR MOSCOW TO TAKE PART IN DECODING FLIGHT RECORDERS
PanARMENIAN.Net
25.05.2006 13:34 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Specialists of the Central Administrative Board
of the Civil Aviation of Armenia departed for Moscow. Along with
Russian and French specialists, they will engage in decoding the flight
recorders of A-320 airplane of Armavia air company, which crashed near
Sochi on the night of May 3. The speech recorder was lifted from the
Black Sea ground Monday afternoon, while the parameter recorder on
Tuesday evening. Earlier Chair of the Inter-State Aviation Committee
Tatyana Anodina stated that no complications are expected when decoding
the parameter recorder, while the speech recorder was heavier damaged
by aggressive water environment. “We may have to decode the magnet
tape piece by piece,” she said.
Experts of Airbus consortium – the producers of A-320 – will take
part in the decoding. Spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Department
of Armenia Gayane Davtyan stated Wednesday that the flight recorders
will only be examined in Russia, while they will be sent to France
for decoding. However, judging from latest reports, the recorders
will be decoded in Russia, reports Lenta.ru

NKR HEAD: MONTENEGRO REFERENDUM IMPORTANT PRECEDENT
PanARMENIAN.Net
25.05.2006 14:48 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Nagorno Karabakh has all grounds for expecting
international recognition of independence, NKR President Arkady
Ghoukassian said. In his words, the latest referendum in Montenegro
is a very important precedent. “If the international community is
ready to recognize Montenegro and Kosovo independence, then I think
it will be very difficult for them to explain, why then why do not
they recognize NK?” Ghoukassian said.
In the NKR President’s opinion, Karabakh has more grounds for expecting
recognition of independence, including geographic and legal ones.
“If we recall that the people of Nagorno Karabakh have survived in
the war imposed by Azerbaijan and has its statehood now, I believe
we have all grounds for expecting international recognition of
independence. I see no alternative to that. NKR is independent and
will be such irrespective of Azerbaijan’s desires,” Ghoukassian said.
The NKR President is sure that the International community will
recognize Karabakh sooner or later.
“The sooner it does it, the more the chances for peace to be sustained
in the region,” reports Novosti-Armenia.