Hrach at Azad-hye.com laments the lack of medals won by the Armenian Olympic team.

From the opening ceremony it was clear that the Armenian team was lacking motivation. The men were wearing dark soviet style gruesome customs, while there was only one woman representative in the whole team. The CBS channel commentator mentioned that half of Armenia’s population is below the poverty rate and that the winners of the golden medals will receive 40 thousand dollars (an amount that the Armenian Government eventually will not have to spend). We were wondering why this sum was not spent before the Olympic Games.

As he points out, Armenians did win 4 medals, but none of them for RA.

Read the full post.

Paul Mellor is a British photographer who travelled to Karabagh to take some startling images.

An exhibition of these images were shown recently in the UK, and are now part of an exhibition in Massachusetts. The Milford Daily News reports on this exhibition.

He hopes his photos raise awareness and support for relief efforts to help the people of Nagorno-Karabagh. He and his wife are planning to return this October. They now work with BirthLink, a charity based in England that provides medical training and equipment to the region.
“This is an ongoing story. It doesn’t stop with this exhibit,” Mellor said. “We will continue. We’re passionate we can make a difference.”

Paul Mellor originally travelled to Karabagh with his wife to take pictures of a hospital construction program for the relief organization, Family Care.

Paul Mellor’s photography.

CNN International ran a story today titled ‘Armenian homecoming’ about the village of Vakifli Koyu in southeastern Turkey near Musa Dagh. The story was about the visit of descendants of Armenian villagers from around the world. Vakifli Koyu has been called the last Armenian village in Turkey because it is still home to around 150 Armenians. According to an article (more later) it was birthplace of the former Armenian president, Levon Ter Petrosyan. UPDATE: As one reader has pointed out, most sources (here and here) say he was born in Aleppo, Syria.

The current residents are survivors of the genocide rescued by a French warship in the famous 40 days of Musa Dagh incident. A review of the book The Burning Tigris by James R. Russell gives us some more detail:
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The relationship of business and government in Armenia has come under increasing scrutiny. Businesses complain of a lack of consistency in dealings with government bodies. Bribery and connections still count for a lot. HETQ Online reports on the problems still facing doing business in RA.

On the whole, the situation in Armenia ’s business sector is as follows: a businessman’s economic “achievement”, or his “success”, does not depend at all on his professional abilities. The principal condition for a businessman’s success is his degree of proximity to the government. The closer he is to the government, the more successful he is. The farther he is from the government, the less successful he is. If we take a look at the list of the most successful businessmen in Armenia , we see that those closest to the government are at the top of the list. There are no strangers on the list. How have these businessmen achieved their success?

Read the full article.

Amongst a good crop of new articles, HETQ Online has an article on the software industry in Armenia.

In 1990s the experience of the most successful exporters - India, Ireland, and Israel - greatly inspired the developing and less developed countries, and as E. Carmel put it, many countries “have been trying for ten years now to become the next India.” For several years, this ambition has been proclaimed on behalf of Armenia as well

In 2003 the annual turnover of the IT industry in Armenia was $24 million. The report talks of reaching a figure of $300-500 million in annual revenue by the year 2010.

Read the full article.

There are two seperate reports about rumours that the US will redeploy troops to Azerbaijan.

First, Eurasianet.org has this report:

News that the United States plans a massive redeployment of its armed forces has Azerbaijanis wondering whether their country will soon host US troops. Azerbaijani officials are coy on the base question, prompting some local political analysts to say Baku is trying to leverage the issue to achieve a breakthrough on the stalled talks on a Nagorno-Karabakh peace settlement.

Inevitably there is speculation that the US will back them against Russia in the Karabakh dispute.

Meanwhile Yeni Musavat from Baku explores the Karabakh angle in more detail.
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It seems the rich of Armenia don’t want anyone to see their wealth. RFE/RL reports that journalist Mkhitar Khachatrian was beaten up in Tsaghkadzor after taking pictures of the house of Armen Yeritsian, deputy chief of the national police.
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Georgian traffic police have been fired, reports the International Herald Tribune.

Georgian driving rules might be recorded like this: Always be first. Always regard a two-lane highway as a three-lane highway, keeping in mind that the middle lane, an imaginary space squarely astride the other two, is a lane solely dedicated to you. Go as fast as you can, except when roads are wet. Then go faster.

Lounging in front of empty barracks, the traffic police watched traffic rush past. There was nothing for them to do. They did not even try.
Georgia once had more than 4,200 police officers on its roads. On that evening it effectively had none. Cars sped by at 145 kilometers, or 90 miles, an hour. The officers looked bored.
Asked why they were not working, they exchanged smirks. “We are not functioning any more,” Lieutenant Pavel Kankrelidze said.
Put another way, the traffic police had been fired. Georgia has had what it calls its Rose Revolution, the bloodless nudge last year that pushed President Eduard Shevardnadze from power. Now it is having a road revolution, utterly changing what it is like to drive in one corner of the former Soviet Union.

This is one export that Armenia would be glad to accept from Georgia. Real democracy, then real law and order.

Read the full article

Nonny Hogrogian is an award-winning illustrator of children’s books from New York. She was twice winner of the Caldecott medals in 1966 and 1972. Much of her illustrations are for books of Armenian fairy tales.

Nonny Hogrogian was born on May 7, 1932 in New York City and grew up in an atmosphere that promoted artistic expression. Her mother dabbled in painting; her sister was an interior designer; and her father imitated the styles of Renoir, Monet, and others. She received the Bachelor of Arts degree in fine arts from Hunter College in 1953 and studied woodcutting under Antonio Frasconi at the New School for Social Research in 1957. After college she worked as a production assistant and designer in the children’s literature department of Thomas Y. Crowell. In 1960, she illustrated her first book, King of the Kerry Fair. Since then she has divided her time between freelance illustration and serving as designer for the children’s books, first at Holt, Rinehart and Winston and later Charles Scribner’s Sons. In 1971 she married David Kherdian, a poet whose work she sometimes illustrates.
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Mayreni Publishing is a small publisher based in California and specializing in books with an Armenian theme.

They have a new cookbook by Barbara Ghazarian called Simply Armenian: Naturally Healthy Ethnic Cooking Made Easy. The book has recipes for choreg, yalanchi sarma, nivik, madzoon, shish kebab, amongst others.

They also have a book about Syunik during the Bronze and Iron ages, no doubt with some of the history of Zorats Qarer. Why only Syunik?

Following the disintegration of opposition protests after April, Liberal-progressive party leader Hovhannes Hovahnnisian has announced that his party is in consultation with other opposition parties to begin serious operations and make a serious
application for implementation of the change of the power in
Armenia, according to Arminfo (Via Groong)

Speaking about the situation in the republic, Hovhannes
Hovhannisian stressed that Armenia has turned into a corrupted
country, where the laws do not work, and all takes place on the basis
of oral agreements between the powers that be. Armenia is a country
which has a potential for development, if the corruption is extirpated
here, he stressed.

This is not really a newsworthy story, but this joke about an Armenian mom made me laugh out loud, so I’ll share:

ARMENIAN MOM
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Several reports mention that a Japanese student was arrested in Baku on suspicion of spying for Armenia. He was taking pictures near the Intourist hotel. Apparently his only crime was to be a student of Yerevan State University.

He has now been released.

UPDATE:
RFE/RL reports that the Japanese embassy in Moscow says he was never arrested.
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ArmeniaNow.com has a good roundup of the Pan-Armenian cultural festival.

The first Pan-Armenian cultural festival started last Sunday with ceremonies in Freedom Square, where 1,500 artists from 15 countries were greeted with applause while they walked down a red carpet.

Groups divided by countries were accompanied by symbols of the festival, Narek and Nareh. More than 150 Nareks and Narehs are volunteers, who dressed in traditional Armenian clothes and symbolize the connection between Armenia (Narek) and Diaspora (Nareh).

There are 15 countries taking part this year. Rather than a competition, it’s a showcase for Armenian culture with dance, theatre, etc.

Read the full article.

armenianhouse.org is a website which describes itself as is an electronic library featuring a huge collection of documents on Armenian literature, history, religion and anything else Armenia-related.

There are texts in Armenian, Russian, and English. Recent additions seem mainly Genocide-related, but there are sections on fiction, poetry, non-fiction, for kids, etc.

The Literary Cafe section is home to works by young Armenian poets and writers.

The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) has announced plans to open a new school in Yerevan, the “Melkonian educational center”. The school will reportedly cater for up to 200 students from around the world. Young diasporans can learn language, culture, literature and history.

The educational establishment will be equipped with modern
technology with lingo-phone and computer auditoriums. University aged
students may continue their education at local Armenian higher
educational establishment as well as at American and French
Universities here in Yerevan. Ashot Ghazarian informed that they are
negotiating with Yerevan municipality to provide facilities for that
purpose. The project will be funded by AGBU.

The representatives of the Armenian government and Armentel have been meeting in London since August 9th, reports Haykakan Zhamanak (Via Groong).

At issue is Armentel’s monopoly on Armenian telecommunications, now voided by the Armenian government.

In relations with ArmenTel, the second important task is bringing the
company back under control. That is, it is necessary for the company
to take no action without the government’s agreement, especially in
tariff policy. Our sources characterize the government’s goal in the
following way: ArmenTel must obey. All the remaining issues, such as
the digitization of stations, upgrading of Internet communication and
others can be considered secondary. For example, there is no doubt
that if ArmenTel does not increase the tariff per minute of fixed
communication, the government, in its turn, can forget about an
improvement in the quality of communications for some time. In the
given case the introduction of a tariff of eight drams per minute is
in question. It is a highly explosive issue for the Armenian
government. However, there is no doubt that in this issue the
government can only gain time at best. That is, in the course of the
negotiations, the government will have to come to an agreement on
tariffs, which means that subscribers will be informed in the near
future when these tariffs, a cause of general horror, will be applied.

Granting a monopoly was a big mistake in the first place. If you’ve paid a lot of money for a national monopoly for a fixed period (10 years) then there is no incentive to invest heavily as Armentel was supposed to do. Rather, you sit back and hope to make as much money in the period of the contract as possible.

Read the full article.

Another story from RFE/RL, this time on the unemployment rate in Yerevan.

According to a survey by the EU-sponsored Armenian-European Policy and Legal Advice Center (AEPLAC) unemployment in Yerevan is three times higher than official figures, although it is in line with the estimates of economists and analysts.
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RFE/RL reports on the trial of Hayk Aramian, son of former Minister for Urban Development Ara Aramian. He has been on trial for shooting three men in a Yerevan cafe in March.

Hayk Aramian, 24, was convicted of deliberately opening fire from an illegally owned handgun and injuring three men late on Monday, according to an aide to the judge who presided over his one-day trial in a district court of Yerevan. Another defendant, a cafe’ guard, got a 3 1/2-year suspended jail term for stabbing Aramian and his companion.

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Arminfo (Via Groong) reports on 867 illegal constructions projects recorded by the Department for Town Development and Land Control of Yerevan Municipality of Armenia. This is in contrast to just 72 the same time last year.

He said that the greatest number of illegal constructions was exposed in the communities Center (229), Achapnyak (149) and Arabkir (147). 325 of the above 867 illegal constructions were disassembled as against 32 in the first half of 2003. Within the first 7 months, the Municipality received 1,974 applications by citizens and orgnaizations in connection with illegal constructions and seizure of land lots, 867 of them were considered grounded. Melkumyan said that the Department issued 235 permissions for construction. The lion’s share of the constructions will be carried out in the Center and Achapnyak communities.

Read the full article.