Armenian News

Interfax, Russia
June 19 2010
Azerbaijan, Armenia blame each other for deadly clash
BAKU June 19


Azerbaijan has blamed Armenia for a deadly clash between Azeri and
Armenian troops in the vicinity of Azerbaijan's disputed enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh that broke out late on Friday.

The Armenian media said four Armenian soldiers were killed and another
four were wounded in the skirmish, and that one Azeri soldier died.

"Armenia has led itself into a trap by violating the ceasefire regime
in seeking to avoid current negotiations to settle the Nagorno-
Karabakh conflict," Azeri Defense Ministry spokesman Eldar Sabiroglu
said in a statement. "This must be qualified purely and simply as one
of its regular provocations."

Sabiroglu said the skirmish broke out around midnight and went on for
a long time.

He said there had been increasingly frequent clashes between Azeri and
Armenian troops recently and that, in the latest skirmish and previous
clashes, the Armenian soldiers drew back.

"However, it is a remarkable fact that, for the first time, the enemy
has been forced to openly admit its defeat during the battle. This is
very interesting because, as a rule, the Armenians try to conceal
their losses. In our view, there is no need to look for the reason,"
the spokesman said.

He argued that behind Azeri-Armenian armed clashes is an Armenian ploy
to divert public attention in Armenia from the country's economic
problems. He claimed there is growing public discontent over economic
adversities in Armenia.

"They have once again understated their casualty statistics. We have
accurate information that they sustained greater losses than they have
admitted," Sabiroglu said.

"It must come home unambiguously to aggressive Armenia that, unless it
peacefully withdraws from the occupied lands or resorts to other
provocations of this kind, it will receive even heavier strikes. The
Azeri Armed Forces possess sufficient resources for this," he said.

Armenia occupies Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri lands bordering it.

Armenia has laid the blame for the latest skirmish on Azerbaijan,
claiming the incident had been designed to wreck Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict settlement talks.

U.S. Secretary of State to visit Armenia
June 26, 2010 - 11:39 AMT 06:39 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net -

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Ukraine,
Poland, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia from July 1 to 5, the U.S
Department of State said.

In Kyiv, Secretary Clinton will open the second meeting of the
Strategic Partnership Commission and meet with government officials,
including President Yanukovych and Foreign Minister Gryshchenko, and
with civil society and independent media leaders.

In Krakow, Secretary Clinton will participate in the celebration of
the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Community of Democracies,
an organization initiated by former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and her Polish counterpart Bronislaw Geremek in 2000.
Secretary Clinton will also meet with Polish Foreign Minister
Sikorski.

The Secretary will continue on to Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia,
where she will hold meetings with government officials and civil
society leaders to discuss bilateral issues, as well as issues related
to regional peace and stability.

News from Armenia - NEWS.am
Turkey returned to language of preconditions, Edward Nalbandian says
June 25, 2010 | 12:43

If Turkey agrees to ratify and implement the Protocols without
preconditions, the Armenia-Turkey normalization process will be
underway, RA Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian stated at the June 25
press conference in Yerevan.

However, today Turkey has returned to the language of preconditions,
RA FM said. `For some reasons Ankara does not show respect for the
Armenia-Turkey accords signed in Zurich. Turkey constantly reiterates
that it does not set preconditions and does the opposite,' the
Minister said. Not only Yerevan, but also the international community
repeatedly stated on the matter, he noted.

Yerevan suspended Armenia-Turkey deal in April 2010 after Turkey
constantly torpedoed the adoption of the documents in the Parliament.


TODAY, 14:01
Aysor.am
Why is Austria opening its first South Caucasus Embassy in Baku?


Austria's Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said Friday in the
press conference at the Armenian Foreign Ministry that Austria is
interested in Nabucco project and this was a reason for opening its
first in the South Caucasus region embassy in Azerbaijan.

`Our former minister said embassies would be open in all states of the
South Caucasus, however, crisis got in the way,' said Michael
Spindelegger.

When asked why he didn't respond to the military statements of the
Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, which were made in the joint press
conference with Michael Spindelegger, Austrian Foreign Minister said:
`I do not give comments on statements of my colleagues. I came here
not for solving the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There is
a special body for that - the OSCE Minks Group. We came here to listen
to sides' positions and understand what is going on,' said minister.


Panorama.am
Memorial service in Holy Echmiatsin for the 4 Armenian soldiers killed
in the Azerbaijani sabotage
14:17 25/06/2010 » Society

Holy mass will be served in the Mother See of Holy Echmiatsin June 27,
to be followed by a memorial service for the 4 Armenian soldiers
killed in the Azerbaijani sabotage, a condemnable incident in the line
of contact in the sector of Chaylu, Martakert at the night from June
18 to June 19, Mother See press office reported.

EurasiaNet, NY
June 25 2010
Apricot Farmers Struggling in Armenia amid Crop Failure
June 25, 2010 - 3:30pm, by Marianna Grigoryan

Apricots may have served as Armenia's calling card at this year's
Eurovision pop music contest, but, back home, severe crop damage has
transformed these `kisses of the earth, fruits of the sun' into a
source of economic hardship.

`We have no idea what to do. I want to cry bitterly looking at my
orchard trees,' said Margo Vardanian, the owner of an apricot orchard
in Jrashen, a village in central Armenia's Ararat Valley. `Hail and
rain have spoilt the crop. The apricots that survived ¦ are not fit
for export.'

Freezing temperatures in late March, along with protracted rain,
severely damaged apricot orchards in the Ararat Valley, the
3,071-hectare-large epicenter of Armenia's apricot industry. Nearly
three months after the procession of storms, orchard owners are still
cursing the bad weather.

Agriculture Minister Gerasim Alaverdian has predicted a 30-40 percent
slump in the 2010 apricot harvest, compared with last year's yield of
85,000 tons. That slump is reflected in prices at Yerevan's central
market, where imported bananas now sell for far less than local
apricots -- about 600 to 800 drams (about $1.60 - $2.00) per kilo of
bananas compared to 1,000 to 2,500 drams (about $3.00 - $6.50) for a
kilo of apricots. Those prices, roughly three to eight times the level
of last year's prices, have made apricots a delicacy for many
Armenians.

At a June 2 press conference, Alaverdian pledged that `[t]here will be
no problems with apricot export and storage,' but high prices and
short supplies make some experts skeptical about how well Armenia's
apricots will be able to compete this year in Russian and European
markets. Last year, Armenia exported 13,500 tons of apricots to Russia
and the European Union. Data on the revenue value of those exports was
not immediately available.

The country's largest apricot export company, Spayka, is expecting to
slash its exports by 30 percent this year, according to Spayka
Development Manager Karen Baghdasarian.

Apricot farmer Vardanian shares the skepticism about the market
outlook for apricots. She expects less than a ton of apricots from her
one-hectare orchard this year. In 2009, the orchard produced about 22
tons. To keep the orchard going, her family took out a bank loan of
more than a million drams, or about $2,670, she said. `Huge loans and
debts -- this is all we have now, we don't know what to live on,'
Vardanian recounted. `I wish the government helped us by freezing
[interest payments on] our loans until next year's harvest.'

An apricot orchard owner from Etchmiadzin, a town about a half-hour's
drive from Yerevan, expressed similar frustrations. `The trade in our
orchards was in full swing at this time in the past, while now we have
neither work to do nor any expectations [of work],' complained the
orchard owner.

But, for now, whether or not the government plans to intervene remains unknown.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Samvel Galstian said the ministry is still
evaluating the damage to Armenia's apricot crop and will submit a
report for cabinet consideration in July. `We don't know yet whether
the government will be able to help the farmers or not; we have to
wait now,' Galstian said.

Meanwhile, apricot farmers are settling down to wait, too. `We must
survive until next year, then we'll see what we can do,' said one
Etchmiadzin orchard owner, pointing out the poor quality of his
orchard's speckled apricots. `Still, a question remains whether we'll
manage or not.'

Editor's note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based in
Yerevan.


US Fed News
June 25, 2010 Friday 5:19 PM EST
CONTENTS OF WORLD'S OLDEST LEATHER SHOE MAY YIELD
CLUES TO ANCIENT AGRICULTURE


WATERBURY, Conn., June 24 -- The University of Connecticut issued the
following news release:

The discovery of the world's oldest known leather shoe set the
archaeological world and the public abuzz. But what really excites
UConn archaeologist Alexia Smith is not the shoe itself but its
contents.

Smith, an assistant professor in the anthropology department in the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is part of a multi-national team
that recently announced the discovery of a 5,500 year-old shoe at the
excavation site of Areni-1 in Armenia.

The shoe, made of cowhide and perfectly preserved, is an
archaeological marvel because of its age - it dates back to around
3500 B.C. - and its pristine condition. It is stuffed with grass,
perhaps to maintain its shape or to prepare it for storage. And that's
what interests Smith. What a casual observer might see as simply a
handful of grass is for her an intriguing puzzle waiting to be solved.

The shoe contains Poaceae, a family of grasses that includes the
staple food grains and cereal crops grown throughout the world. Smith
is a archaeoethnobotanist, whose primary research interest is the
recovery and identification of ancient plant remains. She uses this
evidence to determine the effects of climate change on food production
in Bronze and Iron Age settlements in the Near East.

"Once the shoe is conserved," she says, "the grass will be removed and
I'll conduct a full analysis. By identifying the grasses, I'll
hopefully be able to reconstruct the specific types of vegetation in
existence at the time it was worn."

Typically, plant remains are preserved through carbonization, and
certain species do not survive the process. But because the floor of
the cave at Areni-1 was covered by a thick layer of sheep dung, the
artifacts left behind were effectively desiccated, leaving both the
shoe and its contents in superb condition for analysis.

Animal bones found at the site point to a society in which cows,
sheep, and goats were domesticated. The presence of additional
artifacts suggests the existence of a range of household activities,
such as cooking over stone hearths and the grinding of grains for
human consumption.

What especially intrigues Smith is evidence that the inhabitants of
the cave heavily exploited tree fruits. "This was a real surprise to
us," she says, "because so few are found at other sites."

In addition to her work at the Areni-1 site, she is working at the
Tell Leilan project in Syria. This is one of the largest
archaeological sites in that country and was one of the most important
cities in northern Mesopotamia during the second and third millennia
B.C.

Work at that site also focuses on the relationship between humans and
their natural and social environment. Located in the Fertile Crescent,
Syria was one of the areas where hunter-gatherers settled and complex
societies based on formal agricultural principles were developed. This
included not only the propagation of grain crops, such as wheat,
barley, and flax, but also trees such as fig and olive.

The realization that fruit trees were an important component of the
agricultural landscape in Armenia, outside the Fertile Crescent and at
a transitional time between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages (the
Chalcolithic period), adds to the intrigue at the Areni-1 excavation,
because so little is known about their process of domestication.
Currently all evidence points to the Caucasus as the most likely
region of origin.

"Very little is known about food production during the Chalcolithic
period in this region," says Smith, "so any new information is truly
exciting."