Armenian News

GAS SUPPLY TO ARMENIA THROUGH GEORGIAN TERRITORY TO BE RESTORED IN 5 DAYS

YEREVAN, JANUARY 10, ARMENPRESS: The gas supply to Armenia from
Georgia will be restored in five-day period. Georgian Energy Minister
Alexander Hetaguri told today the reporters that the restoration works
of the Kazakh-Saguramo sector of the gas pipeline are carried out
24-hours a day so that the gas supply to Armenia be restored as soon
as possible.

Press secretary of `Armrusgasprom' company Shushan Sardaryan told
Armenpress that a group of specialists from Armenia left for Georgia
and is in the place of the accident participating in the restoration
works.
Currently the gas supply in Armenia is ensured from reserve stores.


Today's Zaman, Turkey
Jan 10 2009
Prosecutors prompted to begin probe into apology campaign

The Ankara Chief Prosecutor's Office has launched an investigation
into a campaign initiated by a number of Turkish intellectuals who
have been collecting signatures for a statement personally apologizing
for events that took place in 1915 that Armenians claim constituted
genocide.

According to the Anatolia news agency, six Ankara residents -- Hasan
Hüseyin Satır, Sabahat Ã-zgür, Mehmet
Ä°nal Kolburan, Hüseyin ErdoÄ?an, Serdar Orhaner
and KürÅ?at Karacabey -- submitted a petition for
criminal prosecution of the campaign organizers and the people who
added their signatures to the campaign. They based their argument on
the grounds established by the Turkish Penal Code's (TCK) infamous
Article 301, which has been used to prosecute several intellectuals,
journalists and activists for `insulting Turkishness.' Submitted
yesterday, the petition quoted the statement made in the apology
campaign: `My conscience does not accept the insensitivity shown to
and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that Ottoman Armenians were
subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice, and for my part, I
empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I
apologize to them.' The petition made to the prosecutor's office also
stated that `those so-called intellectuals close their eyes and
conscience to the fact that in the same time period Armenian gangs,
with the cooperation of the imperialist occupiers, savagely killed
hundreds of thousands of Turkish people, and the phenomenon that they
mention is the phenomenon the Armenian claims of genocide are based
on.' Calling the `so-called genocide claims' baseless -- which they
described as also being the stance of the Turkish state -- they
further said the `so-called intellectuals describe the state policy as
`denial' and declare that they do not approve of it, so they accuse
the Turkish nation of `committing genocide',' and as such, they are
`degrading the Turkish nation.'

The prosecutor's office started an investigation into the issue; the
organizers of the Internet campaign will be asked to testify and the
Web site www.ozurdiliyoruz.com will be investigated, Anatolia
noted. The apology campaign collected close to 27,000 signatures on
the Internet since it was started in December of last year.


Armenian Trial Deadlock Continues
By Astghik Bedevian

Seven prominent opposition figures arrested following Armenia's
February 2008 presidential election kept their high-profile trial in
deadlock on Friday with their continuing refusal treat the presiding
judge with due respect.

The judge, Mnatsakan Martirosian, adjourned court hearings until next
Tuesday after the defendants again stayed demonstratively seated when
he entered the courtroom. Armenian law obligates them as well as
other trial participants to stand up at that point. The defendants,
among them former Foreign Minister Aleksandr Arzumanian and three
parliament deputies, have refused to comply with this requirement
ever since the trial started on December 19.

Arzumanian again scornfully suggested that Martirosian abandon the
controversial case through self-immolation. He also claimed to be
unaware of the requirement in question. `Who told us to stand up?' he
said.

`Once again I remind that failure to stand up at the start of a court
session is a gesture of disrespect that makes it impossible for the
court to hold a hearing without disciplinary action,' Martirosian
replied before ordering court guards to remove the defendants from
the courtroom. The judge also stepped in to stop Hakob Hakobian, one
of the three jailed parliamentarians, making offensive comments about
his pro-government colleagues who lifted his immunity from
prosecution in March.

The seven oppositionists are among some 70 supporters of former
President Levon Ter-Petrosian who remain imprisoned on charges mostly
stemming from the post-election unrest in Yerevan. They stand accused
of organizing `mass riots accompanied by murders' and attempting to
`usurp state authority by force.' The defendants reject the
accusations as politically motivated.

The trial got underway two days after the Monitoring Committee of the
Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) for the first time
described the jailed oppositionists as political prisoners. It said
the PACE should therefore suspend the voting rights of its Armenian
members at its next session scheduled for late January.

The Armenian authorities hope to avert such sanctions as a result of
their negotiations with the Monitoring Committee's two Armenia
rapporteurs who are due to visit Yerevan next week. They have so far
refused to release opposition detainees en masse.


EXCHANGE RATE OF ARMENIAN DRAM AGAINST US DOLLAR
RISES BY 1.2% IN PAST YEAR
Noyan Tapan
Jan 8, 2008

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, NOYAN TAPAN. Consumer prices in Armenia and
the settlement exchange rate of the Armenian dram against the US
dollar rose by 0.1% and 0.9% respectively (the dollar appreciated)
in December on November 2008.

According to the RA National Statistical Service, consumer prices and
the exchange rate of the Armenian dram against the dollar rose by 5.2%
and 1.2% respectively in December 2008 on December 2007. The average
settlement exchange rate of the Armenian dram against the US dollar
made 307.9 drams in December 2008, exceeding by 3.8 drams the index
of December 2007 (304.1 drams).