The Armenian parliament approved Thursday the 2010 draft national budget. The document was adopted with a vote of 82 for, 16 against and 1 abstention. Opposition parties - ARF Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage - voted against the document. Armenian National Assembly Hovik Abrahamyan said the 2010 draft budget will help stabilize the economic situation in the republic. He said that AMD 1.7 billion will be allocated to pay off the deposits in soviet savings bank. Mr. Abrahamyan supported the Prime Minister's call for fighting oligopoly and pledged not to spare effort to prevent misuse of the state budget funds.

A couple of years ago I had a chance of an interview with Robert Sahakyants and one could not assume at that time that he would leave the world so soon. We all knew he was ill, but no one suspected how serious the illness was. He was one of those without whom, in his opinion, everything would sink in sweet syrup. All that you'll read further are his direct words, as we thought no one could speak of Robert Sahakyants and the world surrounding him better than he himself. For some reason he always spoke Russian, although he knew his native language perfectly well. Call it freak of a genius if you like, but now that he is gone words, however beautiful they might be, are needless.

For the past month the focus of Internet-users and IT specialists around the world has been on three main events, namely the completion of the new operating system Windows 7 - the product of Microsoft Corporation, the release of the fast browser Chrome by Google and the work on our own operating system (OS).

On April 11, the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) begins to celebrate the Easter, one of the six patronal festivals. From sunset till late night all the churches of the Armenian Apostolic Church serve Liturgy that marks the end of Lent and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The celebration of the dead and resurrected god dates back to the ancient Egyptian religion, when the Egyptians celebrated the death and resurrection of God Osiris. Present Christian Easter takes its origin from the Old Testament. The old Jews celebrated the Passover (Pesach) as the holiday of exodus of Jews from Egypt.