CEREMONY OF OATH OF NEWLY-APPOINTED JUDGES TAKES PLACE AT SITTING OF
COUNCIL OF JUSTICE

YEREVAN, MARCH 31, NOYAN TAPAN. The ceremony of oath of the judges
appointed by RA President’s March 30 decree took place during the
March 31 sitting of the Council of Justice. According to RA
President’s Press Service, congratulating the newly-appointed judges,
RA President Robert Kocharian, Chairman of the Council of Justice,
mentioned that they should do their best during their tenure in order
to preserve and strengthen judge’s honor and confidence in him in
public perception.

FURNITURE TO BE PRODUCED BY ITALIAN TECHNOLOGY IN YEGHVARD

YEREVAN, MARCH 31, NOYAN TAPAN. The Ellipse company specialized in
production and installation of security systems will set working an
enterprise on production of furniture in mid-April in Yeghvard. Gurgen
Zakarian, company’s Chairman, told journalists that modern Italian
equipments were installed in the enterprise, which will enable to
produce different kinds of furniture, including office and hotel
furniture. At the initial period 15-20 masters will work at the
enterprise and in the future their number will reach 100. According to
G.Zakarian, the furniture produced in Yeghvard will be sold both at
the home and foreign markets. It was mentioned that there is a
preliminary agreement to export the furniture to Moscow. To recap, the
annual commodity circulation of Ellipse makes nearly 2 mln dollars.

Times Online, UK

Books

April 02, 2005

Ottoman of his time

By Jason Goodwin

In Turkey his novels, chronicling the country’s upheavals, have made him as
famous as a footballer. But Orhan Pamuk says it’s time to stop speaking for
the nation and tell his own stories

Remember angst? Germans produced it, where the French had anomie; and we all
know melancholy and tristesse. Now Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s leading novelist,
and in Istanbul the chronicler of the inescapable decline of the great
Ottoman metropolis and the disintegration of the Pamuk family within it, has
given us hüzün. It’s hüzün when wealth ebbs away; when the lovely wooden
mansions of the pashas burn to the ground; when Pamuk’s mother sits up late,
smoking and half-watching the TV, waiting for her erring husband to get
home. Even love is doomed, for old-fashioned reasons: Pamuk wants to become
an artist, and a nice girl won’t marry one in 1960s Istanbul. In Istanbul
Pamuk writes: `I stay in the same city, on the same street, in the same
house, gazing at the same view. Istanbul’s fate is my fate: I am attached to
this city because it has made me who I am.’
What with this and that and a cartoon portrait of the author which recently
appeared in The Guardian, I half expected to find Pamuk the jowly
personification of Balkan gloom when I met him in New York last week. Not
without cause, perhaps: last month, Pamuk made an off-the-cuff
acknowledgement of Turkey’s responsibility for the death of a million
Armenians in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. His remarks provoked
outrage in his native land, where he is famous like a footballer. Though his
novels revel in clever postmodern games and tread unerringly on ground Pamuk
shares with writers such as Borges and García Márquez, his 2001 novel My
Name Is Red became the fastest selling book in Turkish history; elsewhere it
also cemented his reputation as a master storyteller. It was followed in
2003 by Snow, a political thriller and love story of fierce imaginative
scope: if ever you find yourself justifying secular values to a religious
assassin, the dialogue has been written by Pamuk. His books, he says as we
order lunch, have been translated into 36 languages. He isn’t boasting: it’s
just that he has to get things right.

Pamuk is a tall, lightly built man of 53. He speaks English fluently, and is
neatly dressed in a white shirt and a black corduroy jacket; in his
gold-rimmed spectacles he resembles a sort of Turkish Harry Potter. As for
that portrait: `The Guardian people told me it was their policy to make
authors look ugly.’ He pauses, laughs. `I’ll sue them!’

`I’ve written 240 pages a year, for the past 30 years,’ he reminds me more
than once. He would know the exact average: with all his charm, Pamuk is a
precise and hard-driven craftsman, clamped to his desk 11 hours a day,
re-reading pitilessly, cutting `like a ruthless Hollywood producer. For me
being a fiction writer is imposing self-torture.’ To get period details
correct he reads old newspapers; for his English translations he goes over
the text with his translator line by line. Outside dialogue, there’s no
slang in his prose. `I use the Turkish of my mother and my grandmother.’ He
writes with a fountain pen.

>From our table we watch a tug foaming against the current, while across the
water the city stands silhouetted in the spring sunshine. A patrol boat
idles for a moment near the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, and then speeds
off towards Pier 47. `New York,’ says Pamuk, `is my second city.’

In 1985 he followed his wife there for her PhD in Ottoman history. (They
were divorced four years ago, but back in Istanbul Pamuk still regularly
drops round for meals with her and their 15-year-old daughter.) They stayed
in New York for three years, at a time when his international reputation was
beginning to grow. `I was 33. It was flattering.’ At Columbia he found
students of Turkish studying his own first novel, while The White Castle, a
story about a 17th-century Muslim master and Christian slave who swap
places, had just been published in translation.

`My first time I was enchanted, bewitched by NY; but I can’t say I liked it.
I was happy because my marriage was happy. This library – two million books,
a cubicle.’ He wrote The Black Book there, but New York never opened out to
him like Istanbul. `I was an outsider. In Istanbul I know what’s happening
behind the windows, but here it was all blank – except the novels of Saul
Bellow and Paul Auster.’

He is, by his own admission, a very bookish man. When he talks about his
craft his head sinks forward in an attitude of earnest concentration and his
speech is fast. Between the ages of seven and 22 he wanted to be an artist,
until everyone persuaded him that Istanbul in the 1960s and 1970s was too
poor and provincial a place for a serious artist to make a living. Yet being
a novelist, he thinks, repeats the same `essential gesture of being alone in
a room and attempting to legitimise your fantasies’.

The opening chapter of Istanbul describes the sense he possessed as a child
of there being another Pamuk living somewhere in the city; another him,
unknown and unseen. Years later he discovered his father’s secret love-nest
to be a copy of his parents’ room at home, down to the bridge books
teetering on the bedside table. Doubles inhabit almost all his fictions: he
calls them `two sides of the same psychic focus, persona, and never
symmetrical’. He finds himself increasingly drawn to explore the role of
those westernised elites which, like his own, mediate between the local
cultural tradition of the people and the expectations of the wider world,
and are to some extent alienated from both. `A subject I love is that of the
true believer who has doubts, and the true atheist who has secret beliefs,’
he says. `I imply that no one can be completely one thing. If you think you
are a perfect Muslim or modernist, you have a problem.’

He admits to seeing something in his `second city’ which shadows Istanbul.

`It’s that the streets are crowded – a sense that so much is going on. This
is a cultural and economic capital, and it’s so complex. We are the edge of
the water – Istanbul is so open to its water.’ He suspects that the cities
share a certain energy – `though it’s my joke that we only have this energy
on the streets in Istanbul because there’s no subway’. The prevailing mood
of the two cities could not be less similar.

The end-of-empire melancholy, the particular resignation of his home city,
shares nothing with New York. `Istanbul – tristesse! New York – success!’ He
won’t be writing a New York novel. It’s just a place to work, a set of
books, closed doors, beautiful views. A refuge.

Before we leave the restaurant, Pamuk does a quick sketch in my copy of
Istanbul of the skyline framed in the windows overlooking the East River. I
ask him if he’s going back to work and he says no, today’s a holiday for
him, he’s going to buy himself a pair of shoes at Macy’s. One of his black
brogues is peeling from the toe. It’s a beautiful day, the first day of the
New York spring, and we agree to walk uptown, over the Brooklyn Bridge and
up on to Broadway. I can tell from the easy way he swings through the crowds
that he enjoys the exercise as much as the colour of downtown Manhattan.

Turkey’s prospective entry into the EU he sees in terms of stories: in this
case, the stories that a nation tells itself. The collapse of the Ottoman
Empire after the First World War was a trauma for the Turks, prompting a
retreat into inwardness and isolation. At some level, as Istanbul suggests,
the Turks learnt to derive a gloomy satisfaction from their own abrupt
demotion from power status to insignificance, a certain pride in their
collective recognition of the h üzün of end-of-empire.

While happy to lend his support to Turkey’s entry into the EU, Pamuk, who
has been a vociferous supporter of human rights and the rights of minorities
in Turkey, no longer feels the same need to speak out. Death threats and a
potential court prosecution followed his well-publicised reference to the
Armenian massacres. But he acknowledges that Turkey has travelled a long way
towards creating a more open, pluralistic society. There’s also the issue of
what he owes to himself as a writer. If the Turks need a new story as part
of their move into the European mainstream, it’s not his job, he thinks, to
find them one.

The process of adaptation will be as hard as writing, but `with freedom of
speech, with the spirit of creativity, they will invent a new past’. The
Turkey of his childhood had become `scared of its own imagination’. But the
situation has moved on already, with encouraging signs everywhere of colour
returning: his Istanbul describes a city that his own daughter might find it
hard to recognise. `In 20 years she will read this book and say: Daddy, you
are such a sad man!’ `The child inside will come out,’ he predicts.
`Imagination can serve the country better than suppression. Xenophobia and
nationalism will fade away as Turks grow proud of that imagination.’ Ottoman
history needn’t be a catalogue of martial glories: an unexpected prod in the
right direction has come from Israel. `They said: `You Turks treated the
Jews well.’ Sometimes these things get forgotten.’
But he no longer feels he must speak for Turkey, in his fiction at least. `I
have another five or seven novels I want to write,’ he says. `I’m not
looking at literature as representing a country or a culture but as
representing myself. I have to catch my demons rather than catch Turkey’s
demons. I think that the country is becoming a more bourgeois civil society
so I think my demons will be, in the end, more representative.’

A quarter of a billion people, he observes, speak Turkish. `The structure of
Turkish is that the verb is at the end; so that what will happen is a
surprise.’

Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk is published by Faber & Faber, £16.99 (offer,
£13.59).

ARMENPRESS
01.04.2005

AZNAVOUR DEMANDS THAT GERMANY RECOGNIZES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

BERLIN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS: World renowned French singer and composer
of Armenian origin Charles Aznavour demands that Germany must recognize the
Armenian genocide as “a crime against humanity, as France and Switzerland
did.”
In an article published by German newspaper Die Zeit Wednesday, the son
of Armenian refugees from Turkey who fled it at the beginning of the 20-th
century, Aznavour explains that Germany also bears responsibility for that
crime, “not because German government officials ordered the extermination of
Armenians but because they watched it happen as spectators.”
“If Germany recognizes the Armenian genocide that would be a great step
to urge other countries to do the same,” he says.

Religion notes

Boston Herald Interactive

“Doubting Thomas Sunday”

Friday, April 1, 2005
Eight days after Easter Sunday is called “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” On
Sunday, April 3, 11 a.m., the Rev. Avedis Boynerian, minister of the Armenian
Memorial Church, 32 Bigelow Ave., Watertown, will preach about how “Doubting
Thomas,” who had a crack in his wall of faith and became the scapegoat of the
church, became an apostle of the Risen Christ. The public is welcome to the
service.

A sobering speculation

01.04.2005 Hurriyet Prime Minister, reacting to a speculated link
between the US quest for permission from Turkey for widened use of the
military base at Incirlik and US Congressional action on the Armenian
genocide bill, said “this saddens us.” In a press conference held in
Rabat, the capital of Morocco, Erdogan repeated his assertion that
permission for widened use of Incirlik will only be made within the
framework of NATO and UN humanitarian programs. Erdogan went on to
say: “Every request that is made cannot always be met…..there is a
certain level of support that we are already giving and will continue
to give….But developments in the direction of equating the Incirlik
and the Armenian issues sadden us. The American congress has not done
anything like this, and I do not think that will in the future.”

Stressing that Turkey has opened its historical archives to everyone,
Erdogan went on: “We have no animosity towards the Armenians….A
nation should not be slandered like this, and the accusations should
not be accepted, because there are documents and information which
deny the truth of these accusations. We wish to step away from these
accusers.”

On another matter, Erdogan responded to the words of Army Chief
Commander Yasar Buyukanit, who said last week that “Turkey has no
political stance on Iraq.” Stressing that this was not in fact
correct, and that the administration working closely with the military
was responsible for forming this policy, Erdogan said “Clearly Turkey
has a policy on Iraq, and who is forming it is clear.”

Hürriyetim
01.04.2005

Gul: The issues of Incirlik and Armenians are completely separate
At A press conference, Thursday, held between the visiting Foreign Minister
of Congo Rodolphe Adada and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, Gul said that the
issues of whether to utilize the the Incirlik air base and a possible new
resolution in the US congress on the so-called Armenian genocide were
completely separate matters.
“I have elaborated on on Incirlik in the recent past. Certain demands for
cooperation do exist. yet these are not well portrayed in the media. We are
currently thinking on this topic and will evaluate the matter. The Armenian
matter is a totally separate issue. The topic of Armenians is known very
well by former US governments and that of President Bush. We are very
hopeful that when the right time arrives the American administration will
demonstrate the essential sensitivity.”
Gul also thanked the Foreign Minister of Congo for their meeting, which was
primarily to discuss ways of developing trade between to two countries, and
expressed his happiness over meeting with him.

Institute for war and Peace
01-Apr-05

Georgian Resettlement Scheme Blamed for Tensions
In an ethnically mixed part of Georgia, tensions are high as locals blame
new settlers for crime wave.
By Zaza Baazov in Tsalka, southern Georgia (CRS No. 280, 01-Apr-05)
Ethnic issues are playing a part in growing communal frictions in a region
west of the Georgian capital. But both the government and local residents
say the tension is more about crime, poverty and bad policies than real
animosity in this diverse part of the country.
Rising crime has worsened relations between original residents in the Tsalka
district – mostly Armenians and Greeks – and newcomers from other parts of
Georgia.
Feelings run so high that Tbilisi deployed a ten-man unit of crack police in
the village of Avranlo after an inter-communal clash.
The police’s job is to keep the Armenians and Georgians in check, not to
make peace between the communities.
“They haven’t been dispatched here as peacekeepers to reconcile the
Armenians and Ajarians,” said a local resident. “Instead, they are operating
at night – combating criminals, and checking the documents of everyone they
meet on the streets.”
The trouble began when an elderly Greek couple, the Kaloyerovs, were victims
of a violent mugging which left them both in hospital.
The couple’s relatives, who are Armenian, took matters into their own hands
and attacked Ajarian newcomers in Avranlo, beating up about 15 of them and
damaging a local school.
The clash was serious enough for Georgian interior minister Vano
Merabishvili to come to the village himself.
Tsalka district has always been ethnically diverse, with most villages there
inhabited by Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Greeks.
The demographics shifted radically in the Nineties: after Georgia became
independent in 1991, the collapsing economy drove many people to leave the
country. As in other parts of Georgia, many opted for Russia, but the
minorities in this district also emigrated to Armenia and Greece.
By the mid-Nineties, the area received an influx of people resettled from
landslip-prone mountainous areas of Ajaria, in southwest Georgia, and
Svanetia, high in the Caucasus mountains, under a government programme to
offer such vulnerable rural communities a more secure future.
The arrival of the settlers soon created frictions between old and new
residents of Tsalka district. And because the newcomers belonged to the
ethnic majority, the media started talking about inter-ethnic violence.
Svans are closely related to the Georgians, while Ajarians are ethnically
Georgian, differing only in that they have a Muslim rather than Christian
heritage.
Many Armenians here believe the resettlement policy is a deliberate
government attempt at social engineering, to create a more Georgian
population mix.
Not all Armenians agree with this analysis. Razmik Anesyan, from the village
of Ozni, said, ” The people who have described this as an ethnic problem are
journalists who’ve spent one hour here and drawn some odd conclusions.”
Leila Metreveli, Georgia’s deputy minister for refugees and resettlement,
says the assertion that the government has embarked on some kind of ethnic
project is nonsense. “Tsalka district was chosen [for resettlement] because
there’s a lot of abandoned houses and uncultivated land there, not because
of its ethnic composition,” she told IWPR.
Guram Svanidze of the Georgian parliament’s human rights committee, sees
ethnic differences as incidental to the real problem.
“I wouldn’t describe these conflicts as ethnic,” he told IWPR. “They are due
to another reason – social disorder and economic problems. The local,
established population consists of Greeks and Armenians, while the ethnic
Georgian newcomers have not settled in.”
Slavik Kuchukyan, who heads the Armenian community in Tsalka, says no one is
against Georgians coming into the area. “On the contrary, it is actually
better for us. We can learn the Georgian language from contact with them. If
you don’t know Georgian, you won’t be accepted into public service.”
However, language differences have proved a barrier to good relations, since
many young people in the area do not know Georgian, while their counterparts
from Ajaria often cannot speak Russian – a common lingua franca – and
certainly would not understand Armenian.
Many Armenians told IWPR they believed religious differences played a part,
with the Muslim Ajarians at odds with local Armenian and Greek Christian
practices.
Razmik Anesyan says that Ajarians in his village of Ozni “go to pray in a
mosque in an Azerbaijani village several kilometres away, and they can’t
bury the dead in Christian graveyards. It’s rumoured that there have been
acts of vandalism [of cemeteries. It all increases the tension”.
Attempts by the local authorities to build bridges between communities have
often failed to overcome the hostility. A friendly football match between
local lads and migrants in the village of Kizil-Kilisa descended into a
massive fistfight.
Many Armenians and Greeks are conscious that they too were once newcomers –
the two communities began arriving as refugees from Ottoman Turkey two
centuries ago.
Hayk Meltonyan, a local member of the Georgian parliament, says the
longstanding residents just want to see some order imposed to a chaotic
migration process. “The only thing that we want is to stop the mass
resettlement temporarily,” he said. “We need to take a look at the issues,
and provide legal arrangements for the lives of those who have already moved
to Tsalka.”
Other local officials also believe the resettlement programme has been
mismanaged. The scheme to move communities away from mountain areas prone to
landslides and avalanches started up in 1988, when Georgia was still part of
the Soviet Union.
The demand remains high – the ministry for refugees and resettlement
estimates that about 200,000 people in the highlands of Ajaria alone need to
be relocated to lower-risk areas.
But not enough new homes have been built for the settlers, and it is only in
the last six years that the authorities have started buying existing houses.
Impatient settlers have simply moved into unoccupied homes, often in Greek
villages, and tilling the farmland.
As a result, desperate migrants started illegally occupying houses and
farmland, mostly in Greek villages. Others find themselves in a subordinate
position as tenants on land owned by the original residents, and the
situation is worsened by the lack of clearly regulated ownership and
distribution of farming land
There has also been an upsurge in crime, which gets blamed on the newcomers.
“The fact is that both the local population and the migrants are hostages to
the government’s lack of professionalism and concern,” said Tsalka district
administration chief Mikheil Tskitishvili.
According to district police chief Zurab Keshelashvili, “There is zero
criminality among the local population, with the exception of minor brawls.
It is the migrants who are mostly involved in thefts, robberies and
brigandage. Visitors, as they are called, were involved in the two most
recent attacks on Greeks.”
Some villagers draw a distinction between the earlier migrants who have now
established themselves and more recent arrivals, whom they blame for much of
the trouble.
Vardo Yegoyan, from Kizil-Kilisa, recalled that after a couple of difficult
years, original residents and the early wave of settlers became good
neighbours. “The current conflicts have to do with a new group of migrants,
most of whom did not move here as part of the environmental resettlement,”
he said. “Robberies and bandit attacks have become regular occurrences.”
Yegoyan added, “No one would justify beating people or smashing things up,
but when the police stand idly by, the only thing people can do is to
resolve their own problems themselves.”
Police chief Keshelashvili said it had been hard to cope given the few
resources he had before Tbilisi sent down the extra ten-man squad, “Fifteen
policemen with two cars can hardly cope with the crime situation in 42
villages.”
Settlers say they are being unfairly branded as troublemakers because of
offences committed by a small number of criminals.
“We’re peasant farmers. Most of us never even leave our land holdings,” said
an Ajarian settler who gave his name as Jumber, “but the rules round here
are that if one person commits a crime, everyone gets beaten for it.
Property left behind by [emigrating] Greeks is being stolen, and Ajarians
are getting the blame.
“So it’s the robbers who are fomenting trouble, setting people against each
other.”
Zaza Baazov is a freelance journalist in Tbilisi.

fightnews.com

Wills destroys Biles!

April 1, 2005

By Francisco Salazar at ringside

Having not scored a knockout in a couple of fights, Heavyweight Damian
“Bolo” Wills reminded everyone just what he is capable of.

Wills knocked down Kerry Biles twice, the last one for good in the first
round of a scheduled six round bout before 750 at the Henry Fonda Theatre in
Hollywood, CA.

The bout headlined a five-bout “Hollywood Fight Night VIII” card, presented
by Terry Claybon’s LB4LB Boxing Promotions.

Wills had fought to disappointing unanimous decisions in his last two
fights. Although he won both fights, Wills had not fought to his potential
like he had in previous fights.

His fight with Biles was different. Wills came out aggressively in the first
round, taking the fight right to Biles. A combination uppercut/ body shot
dropped Biles to the canvas. Biles was not extremely hurt, but struggled to
get up before eight.

Wills came straight at Biles and landed a solid right to the head of Biles,
dropping him again onto his knees. Referee Vince Delgado had seen enough and
waved the fight off at 1:31of the first round.

“I knew he was a tough guy,” said Wills, wincing after the fight after
getting accidentally poked in the eye by Biles. “He was a big guy too.”

Most fighters do not usually go for the knockout. However, Wills felt
compelled to go for the knockout, which could pose a risk in the future.

“I felt good. I trained really well for this fight. I knew I could have gone
all six rounds, no problem. I just don’t think people want to see me go the
distance. I wanted to get back on the knockout trail.”

Wills, from Hollywood, CA, improves to 14-0, 12 KO’s. Biles, from
Springfield, MO, drops to 6-6-1, 3 KO’s.

In the co-feature, Heavyweight Deon Elam knocked down Francisco Diaz twice
in the first round, but settled for a four round unanimous decision.

Elam scored a knockdown with a right hand to the chin of Diaz. The young
Diaz got up and put up a fight before going down again, getting caught by a
counter left hook by Elam. Diaz got up and survived the round.

The rest of the bout had the quicker Elam controlling the tempo of the
fight. Diaz withstood some devastating punches from Elam and fought back to
make Elam work. With blood coming out of his nose, Diaz fought on despite
receiving a beating. It looked as though Elam had Diaz out near the end of
the fourth, but Diaz held on.

All three judges scored the bout 40-34 for Elam. Fightnews.com scored it the
same.

Elam, from Van Nuys, CA, improves to 1-1. Diaz, from Orange, CA, drops to
0-2.

Welterweight Suswella Roberts dealt with awkward Rita Turrisi, but came away
with a four round unanimous decision victory.

Roberts was quicker and stronger than Turrisi, but had to deal with her
opponent’s craftiness. Roberts had to work harder to land more combinations
because of Turrisi’s style.

In the third, Turrisi stopped fighting and complain to the referee about
getting hit in the back of the head. Roberts did not stop fighting and would
proceed in going straight at Turrisi to land punches. Referee Vince Delgado
allowed for the action to continue.
Towards the end of the fight, Roberts finished strong while Turrisi did just
enough to survive.

All three judges scored the bout 40-36 for Roberts. Fightnews.com scored it
the same.

Roberts, from Santa Monica, CA, improves to 5-0, 3 KO’s. Turrisi, from Las
Vegas, NV by way of Sicily, drops to 3-7, 3 KO’s.

Welterweight Nardan Gasparyan stopped Willie Williams in the second round of
a scheduled four round bout.

Gasparyan broke Williams down throughout the fight. Williams began the bout
at a fast pace. However, Gasparyan worked the body to slow down William,
which was successful.

Williams was noticeably tired in the second round and would lie against the
ropes. His punch output dropped and was getting hit consistently until
referee Dr. Lou Moret stepped in and stopped the bout at 2:15 of the second.

Gasparyan, from Glendale, CA by way of Yerevan, Armenia, goes to 2-0, 1 KO.
Williams, from Lancaster, CA, drops to 0-2.

Heavyweight James Harding decisioned James McCloskey over four rounds of
boxing.

It was an awkward fight between two awkward fighters. McCloskey pressed
forward, but it was Harding who landed the stronger and more effective
punches throughout the fight. Harding landed numerous power punches in the
third and seemed to be the fresher puncher at the end of the fight.

All three judges scored the bout for Harding, 39-37, 39-37, and 40-36.
Fightnews.com scored the bout 38-38.

Harding, from Las Vegas, NV, goes to 1-2. McCloskey, from Hollywood, CA,
goes to 1-1-1, 1 KO.

Notes:
– Faces in the crowd: Heavyweight contender Jeremy Williams, USBA Super
Bantamweight Art Simonyan, Middleweight David Lopez, Actor/comedian Adam
Carolla, and Actor/comedian David Alan Grier.

– Former world champion Bobby Chacon was presented with the 2005 LB4LB
Boxing Lifetime Achievement award for all of his accolades and
accomplishments inside the ring. Promoter Terry Claybon made the
presentation during an intermission.

– LB4LB Boxing returns to the Henry Fonda Theatre on Thursday, June 2nd with
another stellar night of action. To purchase tickets, call LB4LB Boxing at
(323) 461-5252. Included in the price of admission are an after-party,
performance by the LB4LB Dancers, and ringcard girl contest.

– Ring announcer was Ron Henriquez.

Questions? Comments? Email Francisco Salazar

IN 2004, ARMENIA MAKES INVESTMENTS OF 135.9 MLN USD IN FOREIGN
COUNTRIES

YEREVAN, APRIL 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The amount of foreign investments made
in Armenia in 2004 grew 17.9% compared with 2003 and made 467.8 mln
dollars. According to the National Statistical Service, the direct
investments made 235.2 mln USD (a 49.6% growth), portfolio invetments
– 1.4 mln USD (a 6.6% growth), other investments – 231.2 mln USD (a
11.1% decline).

Last year, the outflow of financial resources from Armenia made 135.9
mln USD, including 91.7 mln USD as cash and deposits. In 2004, the
foreign investments in the real sector of Armenia’s economy (excluding
those received through the banking system and the state governance)
made 305 mln 550.8 thousand USD (a 33.1% growth compared with 2003
index), with direct investments making 226 mln 723.4 thousand USD (a
47.7% growth).

The main investments in the real sector were done by Greece ($75 mln
70 thousand), Russia ($67 mln 204.6 mln), France ($32 mln 180.5
thousand), Germany ($38 mln 705.9 thousand), Argentina ($30 mln 401
thousand) and the US ($24 mln 97.5 thousand).