MJ

Don't know why in my previous note I said "viun." I ment the letter "y" in the beginning of the words like "arach" meaning ahead, front, etc.

Glad to entertain you.

On the top of many things that you guys have mentioned, I could also add the Modern American spirituals, as well as the Traditional African folk music. Sometimes I hear this music in movies on Africa. Definitely, Africans are people of tremendous cultural heritage, which has had overwhelming impact on the Modern Western culture.

No multiple identities, here. I do care.

Dear Poetry, The primary difference between the modern Eastern Armenian and the Western Armenian writing (that beyond of the grammar) is the dropping of the letter “viun” in Eastern Armenian. In my view (and it is a highly nonprofessional view) “viun” is an unnecessary and nonfunctional element of Armenian language. I don’t see any reasons not to drop it from the Western Armenian usage, too. The language in its written and oral forms has to choose the path of simplifications, in my view. There is no need to keep the elements, which throughout centuries have become obsolete. But I agree with your comment regarding the divisions. Perhaps, the purpose of the change indeed was, by in large, the introduction of further divisions. About a dozen of years ago, a friend of mine – an Armenian linguist, who has worked for many years with the Academician Manuk Abeghyan (M.A. is considered to be the initiator of the change, and has contributed tremendously in structuring the modern Armenian language and laying down the foundations of its academic and grammatical studies) told me that Manug Abeghyan, while introducing the proposal to make changes, has given the reason of the old phonetics being anti-Soviet. When he has been asked why was it anti-Soviet, his reply has been: “Because this proposed one is Soviet.” However, from the functional point of view, I think that change might’ve been functionally justified, but again, I am not a specialist. [ June 07, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

The only thing that I know is that a former minister (Boghbadyan) has been jailed. Don't know any other details. What kind of underground source may I be, if you just revealed it?

I am not quite sure about all of your explanations, Poetry, though agree with your explanation of the motivations of the communists behind the changes that they have introduced into Eastern Armenian phonetics. I think the differences in the pronunciation of Eastern and Western Armenian dialects have existed way before the 20th century. It is enough to examine, for example, Khachatur Abovyan’s “Verk Hayastani” to be convinced in it, or to listen the speech of the Eastern Armenians. Besides, the changes that the communists have made have been mot really significant. Despite the opinion that may prevail, I think the changes that the communists have introduced have not been that negative. Language is a live media. It evolves throughout centuries. Even the modern Western Armenian is different from the medieval one. The changes of the communists have just simplified the rules, and have eliminated the dead functional elements of Armenian phonetics. As to the Russians, they have not changed their alphabet, either, but have made some simplifications by dropping the nonfunctional rules.

In US Nuclear Plants are mostly private... Yes. You are right about this. But I don't think it can or should happen in Armenia. Talking about Armintel's 90% ownership. May be it is important as well for some security reason's to keep the majority of shares governmental. Armintel is the monopolist. And there is no way to compete for other companies. If government had kept its majority it could at least regulate prices and policies in strategic areas of the national telecom market. I think everybody agrees that serious/criminal mistakes have taken place when privatizing ArmeniTel.

No problem with foreign ownerships. However, Nuclear Plants are national security issues in any country. They cannot be private, I think.

They'd better not...

It is even harder to imagine private anything in (North) Korea.

Armenpress: Political 5 June, 2001 ARMENIAN PRESIDENT IN BELGIUM WILL REAFFIRM ARMENIAN'S WILL TO INTEGRATE WITH EUROPEAN STRUCTURES, SAID OSKANIAN YEREVAN, JUNE 5, ARMENPRESS: The delegation led by the Armenian president Robert Kocharian left for Belgium today. The delegation includes the Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian, Trade and Industry minister Karen Chshmaritian, Energy minister Karen Galustian, the chairman of the parliament's commission of foreign relations Hovhannes Hovhannisian, the Armenian ambassador to Belgium Vigen Chitechian and other officials. Before the departure the Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian stating the importance of Kocharian's first official visit to Belgium said that it will support the relations between Armenia and European Union. According to Oskanian the relations between Armenia and Belgium, Armenia and European Union and Armenia and NATO will be discussed during the visit. The Foreign Minister also stated that the negotiations with EU will go in three directions: the first is general approaches, where the Armenian president will reaffirm Armenia's will to integrate with the European structures faster, the second is the existing programs between EU and Armenia, which refer to the energy issues, information technologies and the volume of trade between Armenia and EU member countries, and the third political direction will mainly refer to the regional cooperation as well as Armenia-Turkey, Turkey-EU relations. On June 7-8 at NATO headquarters the Armenian Defense Minister will participate in the works of NATO Council. According to the Defense Minister Armenia presents 30 programs one of which has already been realized. He also stated that Armenia's cooperation with NATO does not contradict the Armenia's cooperation with Russia, nor disturbs other relations. The Chairman of parliament's commission of foreign relations Hovhannes Hovhannisian stated that the visit "will be a new step towards the relations between the Armenian Parliament and Europarliament as well as Armenia-EU relations". On June 6 Robert Kocharian will have meetings with the Deputy Chairman of European Parliament Mr. Imbeni and the Chairman of European Commission Mr. Prodi. On the same day at NATO Headquarters the meeting of the Armenian president with NATO Secretary General George Robertson will take place. On June 7 Robert Kocharian will meet with the European Parliament Chairman N.Fonten and then the meeting of the Armenian president with the Deputy Prime-Minister and the Foreign minister of Belgium L.Mishel will take place at Egmon Palace, which will be followed by the signing of bilateral documents. Then at the Royal Palace Robert Kocharian will be received by the Crown prince of Belgian Kingdom Fillip. On June 8 at the EU General Secretariat Kocharian will have a meeting with the Secretary General of European Union Javier Solana and then he will visit the Brussels' Mayor's office. Within the framework of the visit the president of Armenia will be present at the concert dedicated to the 1700th Anniversary of the Adoption of Christianity in Armenia held in Saint Mishell temple. He will also visit the local Armenian church. On June 9 the delegation led by the Armenian president will be back to Yerevan.

quote:Originally posted by naira: Is the Metsamor Nuclear Power Station still 100% public? I think so. It's hard to imagin a private nuclear power plant in Armenia.

My pleasure!

His game didn't go today. He lost it.

Poetry, check this, for example, poetry: http://armenians.com/cgi-bin/forum/ultimat...c&f=21&t=000001 . Yes, you can post images, as long as they are from an internet cite. The command is "the address of the image site" />" without the quotations signs.

The activities of the sect should be directed, in my view, at converting the 'non-faithful" to their religion, and enhancing the spirituality of their followers. They should not have anything to do with army, politics, economics, etc. The state and religion/church should be (and I understand it is the case in Armenia, formally) separated from each other.

Alpha, This would be my last comment to you on the subject. You didn’t understand the issues before, and you don’t understand them now, too. The energy companies you hint on have nothing to do with the local businesses. The local businesses belong to the retail side of the market, which is not deregulated in California. They may buy their power from the California utilities at a fixed rate (PG&E, SEC and the San Diego Utility, for example), who in turn, buy it from Enrons and Dukes. This is what the argument was about in the first place. The prices are high in the wholesale market, where those businesses are not participants. The fact of them going bankrupt may have nothing to do with the prices. It would rather be resulted from the power shortages, which paralyses their business. The primary party who would suffer in the process from the prices would be the mentioned above utilities, which buy at a wholesale price, but sell at a (low) regulated rate to the business and residential customers. The commission that you were referring to is called FERC – I had referred you to a material of theirs, earlier. If you were not going to read it, why were you asking me for references? You say: “I prefer to see Duke, Enron and others like them not to get paid their account receivables than see local businesses go under because of money hungry energy barons.” This very statement reveals the quality of your judgments. I thought you have worked in an investment bank, and you would’ve understood things better. The very premise of your statement implies that these companies are not being paid for the power they sell. You formulate your argument like a politician – you say something, but you do it in a way that an unaware person would make the conclusions you want him/her to make. First of all, being unfair doesn’t mean being illegal. Enron's and Dukes are not your/California's uncle. Second, FERC has not concluded that the prices have been unfair. There are such opinions flying in the air, only. Third, Enron doesn’t generate power – it buys from others. Fourth, as you rightly hint on, these companies are not being able to collect their receivables, currently, as well as for quite some time. Therefore, the matter would be resolved in the court – perhaps in the bankruptcy court. This implies that it would take 2-3 years of litigations, huge legal costs, and eventually, the judge may decide that under the bankruptcy proceedings, those who owe Enron, Duke, and others, per se, would pay only 10% of what they owe. Therefore, it is quite understandable that Duke may want to sell power at $3,000.00 MWH (I have not heard of $9,000.00 price), since it is very possible that in 2-3 years they may recover only $300.00 MWH, which would pay for their cost, the legal fees, and the interest on the mentioned sum – if you are economist, and not a politician, you should understand this. Additionally, Enron's stock price was going up at a rate 100% a year in the last 10 years. You can check that it has gone considerably down, lately. Duke is down, too. Additionally, there is information that to supply the power at the mentioned prices, Duke has been running its old plants, which are environmentally hazardous, and it is allowed to run them only 8-9 days a year, and then it is supposed to pay huge fines for running these plants. Therefore, the power prices it would charge would tend to reflect the penalties that it would pay, and would also reflect the costs of hazard to their environmental profile. The $46 price in New York has nothing to do with California. Electricity is the most segmented of all markets. At the time when Midwest (1998) was paying $7,0000.00 MWH, California was paying $30.00. But rather than demagoguing the problem, the MidWesterns fixed it through the measures, which were required. Additionally, the same “barons” trade all over the nation. Somehow, they don’t sell power at the same price in the other regions. Have you ever asked why? I am far from claiming that Enron, Duke, and alike are saints. However, they are not the parties responsible for the crisis – your political buddies are. And neither you, nor the political journalists or commentators are in the position of making any judgments on the subject. If the energy companies have manipulated the market, none of us can claim it, because the necessary information that would be required to come to such conclusions is of highly sensitive character, and only some federal organizations would have access to the relevant information. Eventually, it would be up to the courts to make that judgment. Theoretically it is very possible – all commodities markets are being manipulated from time-to-time. The rest of your buddies along with your governor are political demagogues who have no guts to face the problem and recognize their mistakes and fix them, but would rather hire political operatives (at a $30,000.00 rate per month) to deal with the politics of reelections, rather than hiring experts to give them recommendations on how to fix the problem. As I have claimed before, nobody is profiting from this situation - everybody is loosing. Why? Becasue we have a lot of incompetent and politically charged people on decision making capacities. Your position starts increasingly resembling mania. If you make all your judgments at this level, your life would be hell, full of negativism and nihilism, with a total lack of reason and rationalism. I understand that you are probably in a difficult stage in your life. But you should have the strength to get out of that spot. Otherwise, you would make it only worse and worse. We all have our failures in life. The issue is how do we manage ourselves in the periods of failures. [ June 06, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

Yes, Naira, for example, few software companies. Additionally, the Yerevan Brandy Factory. Yerevan Aluminum Factory (if we consider Russia to be a European country). Hotel Armenia. I am sure there are few more.

Poetry, I didn't mean that somebody was heart, but wanted to point that you have the opportunity to present any poet - Western or Eastern Armenian, or Congolese. If you think, somehow, people are not interested in the Western Armenian poetry, why don't you generate the interest by introducing them? Though I have to tell you that anybody who is well aware of the Eastern Armenian poetry, is well aware also of the Western one.

Berj, We can always find hypothetical questions, to which it would be hard to find answer. However, restriciting one's right to join whatever sect is one of the most despeakable acts of totalitarianism, which cannot be justified under any scenario.

ARMENIA SEEKS ITS PLACE AND ROLE IN EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE, KOCHARIAN SAID Mediamax 4 June 2001 YEREVAN President Robert Kocharian said today in the exclusive interview to Mediamax that Armenia attaches great importance to the development of both the bilateral ties with European countries and the cooperation with common European structures. Armenian President starts his visit to the headquarters of the European Union (EU) in Brussels on Tuesday, during which he will hold meetings with the leadership of EU, European Commission and Europarliament. `In the context of European direction I would point out two important theses that guide Armenia in its foreign policy. This is, first of all, the realization of irreversibility of processes of European integration, and secondly, Armenia's identification as a part of Europe, the search for its place and role in European architecture,' Robert Kocharian said. According to the president, `we take effective steps to establish closer ties with European institutions, and for Armenia it is a natural process'. `Our country has always associated itself with Europe, has felt a part of it. We are linked by centuries-old historic and cultural ties, our principles and aims, approaches to the development and strengthening of peace are consonant,' President Kocharian said.

Aren't we getting a little bit out of our way in claiming who knows or doesn't know what? And why is the assertion being built of a negative premise? Everybody can ask for whomever he/she wants, and everybody may present whomever he/she may choose...

quote:Originally posted by naira: Circassian, I don't know what are you looking for? You want to justify what happened to us in Turkey or you want to understand? Naira, I can tell you what he is looking for. He things he is playing “realpolitik,” here, and he thinks we are here to make a “deal.” Silently, by his gestures he says, “I know we have committed Genocide, and it was terrible,” but when it comes to speaking out loudly, he says: “Let’s make a deal. You walk away from the allegations of the Genocide, and we’ll give you a stake. Maybe we can even tolerate you in Caucasus, and let you benefit from our dominance.” He says let’s come to a consensus, if you want to exist. He doesn’t understand that even if we were even ready to say yes, neither him nor us don’t speak for our nations or our governments. His position makes him feel self-importance. He doesn’t understand that he is overestimating his abilities to play the “game.” Moreover, he doesn’t understand that it is not a game for us, whatsoever. He is just a self-appointed defender of the pan-Turkish interests - this is what he thinks, without understanding that he is about 85 years late. He is talking or pretending to care about Humanity and Morality in general, but he doesn’t recognize the most fundamental Human Rights to live, and to remember. He things that he is going to lure us to trade our memory. He has no understanding of the fact that our memory is part of who we are. He also things that “he” is winning time, that the time is against us. He pretends to be a Human Rights advocate for Turkey, and hints for being jailed for that cause. But he lacks an elementary understanding that any achievements in the arena of Turkey’s Human Rights Record can be built only on the foundations of their recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide. He doesn’t that the Achilles Heel of the Turkish totalitarianism is the Armenian Genocide. Or, the alternative is that he clearly understands that the reform of the Turkish society and the marginalization of Turkish military’s influence in their political and social life starts namely from this recognition. That once the Genocide is recognized, it opens Turkey’s Pandora’s Box, and leads to the liberation of the Turkish society and its renaissance. Maybe this is what he is afraid of, and that’s why he is trying to maneuver and talks from both corners of his mouth. But I hope that some day he understands that we are not interested in talking from the corners of our mouths. The only thing we are interested here is a straight talk.

Check this: http://www.vonerlach.ch/articles/wipo.htm