Armenian News- Panoram-Zaman-RFE-A1+‏

OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS AND THE CUP IN ARMENIA
Panorama.am
20:51 26/11/2008

At 19.00 the airplane from Drezden landed in "Zvartnots" airport
taking hone Olympic champions, who are the evidence of the fact that
Armenia is a powerful chess country. A concert is organized in Karen
Demirchyan sport-concert complex in the honor of the champions.

The Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, the Deputy Minister, and
fans collected in the airport to meet our champions.

Remind that in World Chess 38th Olympiad Armenian men team became

Olympic Champion for the second time.

ARMENIA: ARMY TARGETS STUDENTS
Alarm about demographic slump leads to proposed enlistment on army-age students.
By Sara Khojoian in Yerevan

The Armenian government is working on amendments to legislation which would force

more students to do military service, thereby overcoming a potential shortfall in recruits.

The defence and education ministries are drawing up the changes to three existing laws,

but have not yet presented them to parliament.

"They foresee removing the right to academic leave during military call-up and setting

certain benefits for students [for the duration of their army service]," said Mary Harutiunian,

government spokeswoman.

Currently post-graduate students doing a master's or doctorate are entitled to "academic

leave" which exempts them from having to serve in the military so they can concentrate

on their studies.

While the final details of the proposed changes are not yet clear, there has already been

an outcry against the overall plan.

The government says that it needs to act now to tackle a lack of conscripts for the armed

forces. Beginning from this year and over the next decade, conscripts will be young men

born in the 1990s, the number of whom is constantly declining, as the year 1991, when the

Soviet Union broke up and Armenia became independent, marked a fall in the birth-rate.

According to national statistics, in 1990-92 the birth-rate (for both boys and girls)

was 70,000 but it has declined sharply since then to 48,000 in 1995 and 37,000

in 2006, after which it began a modest recovery.

These trends are considered to be a threat to the country in two official documents, the

National Security Strategy and the Military Doctrine.

However, some experts say that the answer to Armenia's military needs is to move away

from conscription altogether.

Former deputy defence minister Artur Aghabekian - currently a deputy and head of the

Armenian parliament's committee on defence, internal affairs and national security - told

IWPR, "There is really a demographic problem in our country but I personally believe that

general conscription is not the solution."

Aghabekian said it had been a mistake to close military departments in colleges and

universities, which train students in army-related subjects during their studies and which

he said were an important institution for preparing youngster for careers in the armed forces.

Aghabekian said that Armenia needed to form a professional army by giving out temporary

contracts to professional soldiers.

The military currently do have units staffed by soldiers on contracts, amongst them Armenia's

international peacekeeping battalion, but there are no plans to expand this practice.

Another former deputy defence minister Vahan Shirkhanian also believes the army needs to

move away from full reliance on conscription, particularly since emigration was becoming a

big problem. "From 2001 to 2006, 27,000 school-children left Armenia and, this year,

from January to August alone, 83,000 people left Armenia. People who leave the

country take their sons with them," he said.

"So just imagine how many [potential recruits] we are losing every day, which is why our eyes

are always turned to universities, to call up 18-year-olds. But that's not how the problem gets

solved.

"This plan could cause a lot of problems for education and science and also hurt the

relationship between the public and the army. All the more so when problem number one

for our military security is the restoration of trust between army and the public."

Research shows that young men do not want to serve in the army and parents are reluctant

to send their children there because they consider it corrupt.

Surveys carried out by the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International in 2002

and 2006 reveal that attitudes towards the army had not changed in those four years. In the

first poll, 46.6 per cent of those surveyed said they considered the army extremely corrupt,

four years later the figure was 40.4 per cent. The corresponding numbers of people who

said the army was merely corrupt were 16 and 25.1 per cent.

A major reason for public distrust of the army is the high death-rate amongst conscripts,

with frequent reports of young men dying in unexplained circumstances.

Armenia's human rights ombudsman Armen Harutyunian has sent an official letter to the

head of the government administration Davit Sargsian, saying that Armenian law was

currently in line with the Europe-wide Bologna Declaration on higher education and that

the rights of students to continuous study risked being abused under the new legislation.

The chairman of parliament's education committee Armen Ashotian said that every effort

should be made to soften the impact of the new law on students - through new benefits

paid to them while they serve - but insisted it was necessary.

"We all understand that the age of conscription is approaching the 'demographic pit', that

starts with the years 1990-1992 ," said Ashotian. "Men born at that time should soon be

called up into the army and everyone understands that the most important task is increasing

the efficiency of the army."

But many young people are opposed to the proposed changes.

Twenty-six-year-old Alexander Chilingirian, who has gained a doctorate in physics, said

that he would never have completed his studies if he had to serve in the army.

"The army breaks a person," said Chilingiran. "And it doesn't matter if you join the army

at 18 and come out at 20 or if you join at 21 and come out at 23, you don't have the will to

carry anything on. In two years in the army the brain doesn't just switch off, it degrades."

Sixteen-year-old Mikael Sandrosian, a second-year geology and metallurgy student in

Yerevan, takes a similar view.

"If I go into the army that it will definitely have a bad effect on my studies," he said. "In the

first place if I join up, I will forget everything I know in two years and when I return it will be

hard and I won't have the will to carry on learning."

Government spokesperson Mary Harutiunian said that the draft changes were now being

studied by experts, then discussed in government before being presented to parliament.

She said there was no time-frame for their approval.

She said Prime Minister Tigran Sargsian had promised wide discussion of the issue to

ensure that the eventual changes had public support.

Sara Khojoian is a correspondent with Armenianow.com in Yerevan.

MORE TALKS PLANNED WITH AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA
Today's Zaman
Nov 27 2008
Turkey

Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan are scheduled to intensify diplomatic
contacts, boosting prospects for reconciliation in the troubled
Caucasus.

The Foreign Ministry announced yesterday that Foreign Minister Ali
Babacan will travel to Azerbaijan this weekend. Today's Zaman has
also learned that Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, who
visited Ä°stanbul this week to attend a ministerial gathering of the
Black Sea countries, is planning to invite Babacan to Yerevan for
the next meeting of the regional group.

Nalbandian was in Ä°stanbul on Monday for attending a meeting of the
Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), a regional
cooperative organization with Armenia currently holding the rotating
presidency. While in Ä°stanbul, Nalbandian met with Babacan.

Nalbandian told Today's Zaman that he planned to invite Babacan "at
the earliest opportunity" to a foreign ministers' meeting of the BSEC
which will be hosted in Yerevan on Apr. 29, 2009.

Turkish diplomatic sources declined to comment on Ankara's possible
response, noting that they haven't received an official invitation
yet. The eventual decision will be made in reference to "the course
of affairs" in the ongoing negotiations with Armenia, the same sources
told Today's Zaman.

Ahead of the foreign ministers' meeting, Yerevan will host working
meetings for BSEC energy ministers on March 13, for BSEC transportation
ministers on March 27, for BSEC agricultural ministers in first week
of April, and for environment ministers on Apr. 10. Stressing the
importance attached to the BSEC by Ankara, diplomatic sources haven't
excluded the idea of Turkey's participation in these meetings.

Turkey severed its diplomatic ties with Armenia and closed its border
in 1993 in protest against the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh
in Azerbaijan. Ankara says the normalization of relations depends on
Armenia's withdrawal from Nagorno-Karabakh and an end to Yerevan's
support for the Armenian diaspora's efforts to win international
recognition for claims that Armenians were subjected to genocide at
the hands of the Ottoman Empire. But a visit by President Abdullah Gul
in early September to Yerevan to watch a World Cup qualifying match
between Turkey and Armenia's national teams broke the ice between
the two countries. Officials have been holding talks on the possible
normalization of relations since that historic visit.

In September, on the sidelines of a UN General Assembly meeting in
New York, Babacan and Nalbandian had three-way talks with Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh
dispute.

The Foreign Ministry yesterday announced that Babacan will travel to
Baku on Sunday for a two-day official visit at the invitation of his
Azerbaijani counterpart.

In addition to bilateral and regional affairs, the two ministers will
also discuss Ankara's proposal for a Caucasus Stability and Cooperation
Platform to promote dialogue between the countries of that region,
the ministry said in a brief statement.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) in Helsinki in early December is expected to offer an
opportunity for a new trilateral meeting between the foreign ministers
of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, although no formal decision on
such a meeting has been made yet.

RFE/RL Armenia Report - 11/28/2008

Donors Pledge Record $35m for Pan-Armenian Charity

Armenians around the world have more than doubled on their last year's
donation pledge for a Diaspora-funded pan-Armenian charity as a result
of a 12-hour Thanksgiving Day telethon in Los Angeles, USA.

Despite the global financial crisis that has hit the world's major
economies this year, the All-Armenian Fund Hayastan on Thursday managed
to attract more than $35 million in donation pledges from Armenians in
the United States and other parts of the world for its infrastructure
projects in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. A similar telethon staged a
year ago raised only $15.3 million.

According to the Fund's report, Russia's wealthy businessman Samvel
Karapetian had made the biggest single donation of $15 million during
the annual fundraiser held for the eleventh time. The businessman
designated the money for the construction of a hospital in
Nagorno-Karabakh's capital Stepanakert.

Several wealthy businessmen and philanthropists from Armenia and its
Diaspora again accounted for a large part of the telethon donations.

The fundraiser's total proceeds also include the pledges made during
charity dinners as well as phone-a-tons and other charity actions held
in Diaspora communities in the month preceding the main event.

`We have proved again that our nation is strong in its unity,' said
Hayastan Fund Acting Executive Director Ara Vartanian. `It is hard times
not only for Armenia and Karabakh, but for the whole world considering
the continuing global economic crisis. But against all the odds the
worldwide Diaspora has again extended a helping hand to compatriots in
the homeland.'

The latest telethon in Los Angeles also featured Karabakh President Bako
Sahakian, Head of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church
Abp. Pargev Martirosian, donors and other prominent Armenia and Diaspora
figures.

The Fund will use the proceeds from this year's telethon for its core
projects in remote rural areas of Armenia and Karabakh targeting
healthcare, water and education infrastructures.

POPE REFRAINS TO USE TERM GENOCIDE
PanARMENIAN.Net
26.11.2008 19:06 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On November 23, Catholicos of Cilicia, His Holiness
Aram I visited Vatican where he met with Pope Benedict XVI, Times
Online reports.

At the audience, at which the Pope was accompanied by Aram I, the
pontiff deplored "misunderstandings among Christians". He said the
Armenian leader's "fraternal visit" is "an occasion to strengthen the
bonds that exist and a further step in the journey toward full unity,
which is the objective of all Christians and a gift of the Lord."

For his part, Aram I said, "Churches, religions and states should
recognize all genocides, including the Armenian Genocide, and they
should commit themselves to preventing all genocides."

Earlier, a high-ranking Vatican official has emphasized that the Holy
See regards the Armenian Genocide as a fact.

"The Armenian Genocide is a fact. The Vatican's stance on this issue
was stated during a visit to Armenia by [late Pope] John Paul II. The
pope attended the Armenian Genocide memorial and did use the term
Genocide, although this did not please Turkey," said Cardinal Walter
Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian
Unity.

The cardinal's remarks came ahead of meeting between Pope Benedict
XVI and a group of visiting Armenian clerics led by Catholicos of
Cilicia Aram I, the leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Lebanon.

"Genocide is not an allegation, but is a reality. This is not an
issue of term. It is a historical fact with a lot of victims and
this memory needs to be healed. I don't know what the Vatican can do
to ease Turkey-Armenia relations. But this is also an important case
for peace in the Middle East. First of all, the Catholic Church sides
with the victims. This is the most important principle for us while
determining our manners," the Cardinal said.

APARTMENT PRICES FALL IN YEREVAN
A1+
[07:49 pm] 27 November, 2008

As of October 2008, there were 14,550 real estate deals in
Armenia. This number has gone down by 9.1% compared to October 2007,
while the number of houses sold rose by 10.0% in September 2008.

In October 2008, 82.3% of 5,035 alienated real estate deals were
sale and purchase, 16.5% were donations and 1.2% was barter. 30.0%
of alienation of real estate was registered in Yerevan, while 31.7%
of alienated real estate was the homes of apartment buildings.

According to data provided by the State Management Agency for Real
Estate Management, the average market prices for apartments in
multi-apartment buildings measuring 1 square meter went down by 0.3%
in October 2008 compared to prices in September 2008.

In October 2008, besides Yerevan, 426 apartments were sold in the
Marzes; that number rose by 9.8% compared to September 2008 and 20.7%
compared to October 2007.

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