AZERI MONUMENTS IN THE WHOLE TERRITORY OF ARMENIA?
A1+
[07:48 pm] 17 April, 2006
For the discussion of the issue of the preservation of the historical
monuments the Azeri side has prepared a document trying to prove that
there used to be Azeri monuments in the whole territory of Armenia
the overwhelming majority of which has been destroyed.
Tigran Torosyan, the head of the RA delegation to PACE and NA Deputy
Speaker informed about it today.
“Naturally, it is one of the usual falsifications, but we must
seriously get ready to answer them”, Mr.
Torosyan said. In May and June a representative of CE will visit the
region, including Armenia, to investigate the issue of the preservation
of the monuments.
By the way, the reporters of the Monitoring group will be in
Armenia on September 25-27 and will get acquainted with the course
of the legislative reforms after the Constitutional reforms. The
draft report will be represented in October in the session of the
Monitoring Committee. The final report will be represented after the
2007 Parliamentary election, at the end of the year. Tigran Sargsyan
mentioned that the only thing we can do today is to hope that the
2007 elections will be held so well that Armenia will overcome the
monitoring phase and enter the post-monitoring one.
During the press conference Tigran Torosyan represented the work of
the PACE April session. This time the opposition and the coalition
acted unanimously: during the discussion about corruption Armen
Roustamyan and Stepan Demirchyan made speech, Tigran Torosyan and
Artashes Geghamyan spoke about the issues of the Middle East, Hermine
Naghdalyan expressed her opinion about issues of the protection of
human rights, and Tigran Torosyan spoke from the Armenian side about
the refugees. During the discussion of this issue Samed Seidov,
the head of the Azeri delegation represented the Azeri point of view.
The head of the Georgian delegation made speech too.
According to Tigran Torosyan, during the discussion of the issue
statistics about the refugees were made public, which did not proceed
from the interests of the Azeris. The numbers mentioned in the document
revealed that the announcements of Azerbaijan about 1 billion refugees
do not correspond to the reality.
Azerbaijan represented 18 offers about the adopted resolution. Five of
them were accepted, and all of them presupposed editorial changes. As
for the calls on the three countries to cooperate about the issue
of the refugees and their voluntary return, they remained in the
resolution, although the Azeri delegation was against them.
It is noteworthy that the Armenian delegates did not miss the chance
and announced that the issue of the refugees rose after the Sumgayit
and Baku massacres and that the majority of the Azeri who left Karabakh
sold their houses before leaving.

ARMENIAN UNICODE VERSION OF “A1+” WEBSITE WAS LAUNCHED
A1+
[02:19 pm] 16 April, 2006
Armenian Unicode version of our website is now available for our
users. The default font for the version is “Arial AM Unicode”
(Arial AMU). If You do not have the font installed on Your PC You
can download it here.
RSS of Armenian Unicode version is available as well.

BAGHDASARYAN WELCOMED THE CREATION OF THE ORANGE COALITION
A1+
[03:05 pm] 17 April, 2006
RA NA Speaker Arthur Baghdasaryan received Alexander Bozhko, the
Ukrainian Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Armenia.
The Ambassador briefed the NA Speaker on the Parliamentary Elections
in Ukraine and the recent political developments and informed that
as a result of the elections an enlarged coalition agreement will
be signed which will regulate the work of the Parliament and the
Government. The sides found the execution of the inter governmental
agreement signed during the recent visit of the NA Speaker to Ukraine
with the new Parliament extremely important.
The NA Speaker congratulated the Ambassador on the creation of the
orange coalition and voiced hope that it will contribute to the
enhancing of stability and democracy in the country.
At the Ambassador’s request Arthur Baghdasaryan represented his
assessment of the political events in Armenia and the work of the
Parliament.
During the meeting several other issues were discussed.
From: Baghdasarian

ANANYAN WILL RESIGN IF…
A1+
[03:26 pm] 17 April, 2006
“Not a single offer connection with the deconstruction of the building
will be discussed. If that happens, I will resign the same day”,
Levon Ananyan, President of the Writers’ Union tried to soothe all
those people who were concerned about the fate of the building of
the Union on the Baghramyan Avenue.
Despite this, the Union discusses issues of the reconstruction of
the building. On the whole, according to Ananyan, there were three
projects of reconstruction. At present the third of them represented by
an American-Armenian company is the best. According to Mr. Ananyan, the
activity of the company is usually directed towards the simplification
of the life of the writers.
The Armenian writers claimed that the mentioned project intends
to build a small building attached to the existing one, and the
American-Armenian company does not demand any share. Mr. Ananyan
claims that no decision has been made about the plan, and that it is
being discussed during the sessions of the administrations which are
convened once in a three months. “The decision can be made either
three months later or three years later”, Levon Ananyan says.

ENGINEERS AND PEDAGOGUES ARE UNEMPLOYED
A1+
[12:58 pm] 17 April, 2006
The number of the unemployed in the Gyumri Employment regional
Center has been reduced. Nevertheless, this fact is conditioned not
by the creation of new jobs but by the legislative changes according
to which if the unemployed people do not come to the Center for a
certain period of time, they are automatically left out of the lists.
At present there are 22 thousand people looking for job in the Shirak
region. 17 thousand of them are unemployed. The majority of them are
engineers and pedagogues.
Tsayg TV Company, Gyumri

A REPORT ABOUT THE SITUATION OF THE WOMEN
A1+
[06:50 pm] 17 April, 2006
Today in the RA Parliament Mrs. Vera Oskina, the reporter of the
PACE Committee of the equality of rights between men and women,
and Mrs. Zhanik Devo, worker of the PACE secretariat, were received
by Tigran Torosyan, the head of the RA delegation to PACE and NA
Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Oskina mentioned that she is preparing a report about the situation
of the women in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. She was interested
in the role of the women in the political life of Armenia, their
involvement in the local governing bodies, the issues of trafficking
and family violence in Armenia and the statistics in these fields.
Mr. Torosyan mentioned that trafficking and family violence contradict
to the Armenian traditions and form a negligible percent. Referring
to the involvement of the women in the political events he mentioned
that the Armenian women prefer to be engaged in social activities
than political, as 99% of the heads of NGOs are women.
As for the fact that 25% of the electoral rolls is allotted to women,
according to Mr. Torosyan, “positive” discrimination is not good
either and we must not contribute to the involvement of women with
unnatural steps.
During the meeting other issues of mutual interest were discussed too.

THE HEARING OF THE CASE AGAINST “ARMENTEL” WAS POSTPONED
A1+
[08:33 pm] 17 April, 2006
After a pause of about two and a half months the Court of the First
Instance of Arabkir and Qanaqer-Zeytun communities resumed the hearing
of the sue of Sirush Haroutyunyan against “ArmenTel”. The hearing
lasted 20 minutes.
Let us remind you that “ArmenTel” was accused of making mechanical
telephones calls to different countries during internet connection
because of which the subscriber had to pay 260 AMD per minute instead
of one. According to the latest data there are over 900 victims,
and the financial loss is about 600 thousand USD.
The reason for interruption of the hearing was that the court needed
additional information in order to carry out independent expertise
for the questions of the victim and of “ArmenTel”.The expertise will
be carried out by the Committee regulating public relations, and the
Ministry of Transportation and Communication will participate in the
process with an invitation.

“ZHARANGUTYUN” WORKING IN HOME CONDITIONS
Panorama.am
15:32 17/04/06
“Everything is the same, nothing has changed, and we haven’t
yet received a respond from the Prime Minister,” president of
“Zharangutyun” (Heritage) party Raffi Hovhanisyan informed Panorama.am.
To remind, the party had been expelled from their central office in
Theatre of Comedy after H. Paronyan.
“We are working in home conditions and we are ready to struggle for
our rights with the immense love towards out fatherland,” president of
“Zharangutyun” added.

THE STATE OF OUR HISTORICAL – CULTURAL MONUMENTS IN NEIGHBOR COUNTRIES
Panorama.am
13:03 17/04/06
Tomorrow ARF “Nikol Aghbalyan” youth union is going to organize
an exhibition in the central building of Yerevan State University
dedicated to Armenian historical-cultural monuments which are situated
on the territories of neighbor countries at present. To note, the
exhibition is going to last for 3 days.
As the authors of the initiative mention: “Today it is rather important
to concentrated the attention of whole humanity on the importance of
protection and evaluation of cultural values as well as to support the
work of handing in our material cultural values to the world heritage.”
To note, the activity, in fact, has a continuous character. An
analogical exhibition was organized last year which met with the mass
recognition. The organizers mentioned that the past and present states
of cultural monuments in Azerbaijan, Nakhijevan, Georgia and Western
Armenia as well as the monuments in iran are to be presented at the
exhibition.

ARMENIAN AMBASSADOR ON TWO-DAY VISIT TO SAMTSKHE-JAVAKHK
Panorama.am
12:49 17/04/06
On April 15 RA Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Georgia
Hrach Silvanyan and the leader of Armenian Apostolic Church’s Georgian
diocese Patriarch Vazgen Mirzakhanyan have begun their two-day visit
to Samtskhe-Javakhk.
As “A-Info” informs from Akhalkalak the first meeting of the Ambassador
and His Holiness was held in Akhalkalak where first an Easter mess
was served in St. Grigor the Illuminator church after which the
latter met with the representatives of Armenian public organization
in Akhalkalak. During the meeting the Ambassador mentioned that the
visit has a cognitive character.
The Armenian Ambassador also had a meeting with Akhalstkha mayor
Tamaz Petriashvili. During the second half of the day the delegation,
arrived from Tbilisi, left for Ninotsminda and Akhalkalak where
analogical meetings had been scheduled.