Tuesday, July 18, 2017 Russian-Armenian Investors Said To Finance First Projects In Armenia July 18, 2017 . Anush Muradian Armenia - Prime Minister Karen Karapetian (C) talks to Russian-Armenian businessmen at the official launch of their Investors Club of Armenia fund in Yerevan, 25Mar2017. An investment fund set up recently by three dozen wealthy Russian entrepreneurs of Armenian descent will start financing business projects in Armenia this autumn, a senior government official in Yerevan said on Tuesday. The fund called the Investors Club of Armenia (ICA) was officially set up in March at a ceremony in Yerevan attended by Prime Minister Karen Karapetian. The latter has warm rapports with its key founders, notably the Armenian-born billionaire Samvel Karapetian (no relation). The Armenian government signed a memorandum of understanding with the ICA in April. Minister for Economic Development Suren Karayan said at the time that the fund's investments in the Armenian economy should total around $300 million this year. According to one of Karayan's deputies, Hovannes Azizian, the ICO will likely launch its first investment projects in October or November. "The projects to be implemented by the Club will mainly target the areas of energy and renewable energy," he told a news conference. "Now discussions are underway on the possibility of the Club's involvement in some manufacturing sectors as well." Azizian said that the Russian-Armenian investors are particularly interested in hydropower and solar energy. The government, he said, expects them to finance, among other things, the construction of medium-sized hydroelectric plants. One of those plants would be built in Samvel Karapetian's native Lori province. The Armenian Energy Ministry estimates that work on the 76-megawatt facility would cost roughly $150 million. Azizian would not be drawn on the amount of funding which the ICA has set aside for its first projects. "When the projects are finalized we will give information about the investment package," he said. Foreign direct investment in the Armenian economy has rapidly declined in recent years. Government data shows that it stood at a modest $130 million in 2016. Prime Minister Karapetian has repeatedly promised to attract more than $3 billion in investments in the coming years since he was appointed as prime minister in September. The former business executive, who lived and worked in Russia from 2011-2016, has said that at least $830 million of the sum will be invested in 2017. Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian (L) awards a state medal to Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetian, Yerevan, 26Sep2015. The Russian-Armenian businessmen voiced strong support for the 53-year-old premier's ambitious reform agenda when he paid an official visit to Moscow in January. Samvel Karapetian reaffirmed that backing at the official launch of the ICA in March. In addition to his extensive business interests in Russia, the tycoon owns Armenia's national electric utility, largest thermal power plant, and a shopping mall in Yerevan. His Tashir Group is due to open another sprawling trade center in the Armenian capital in September. According to "Forbes" magazine estimates, Samvel Karapetian's personal fortune is currently worth $3.5billion, meaning that he is most probably the richest ethnic Armenian in the world. Dashnaks To Discuss 2018 Government With Sarkisian July 18, 2017 . Sargis Harutyunyan Armenia - President Serzh Sarkisian greets leaders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation before concluding a new power-sharing agreement with them in Yerevan, 11May2017. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) said on Tuesday it will hold discussions with President Serzh Sarkisian soon on who will be Armenia's prime minister after his decade-long presidency ends next April. Dashnaktsutyun is a junior partner in Sarkisian's coalition government, having held three ministerial posts for more than a year. It extended its power-sharing deal with Sarkisian and his Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) following parliamentary elections held in April. "Naturally, the question of who will be prime minister is important to Dashnaktsutyun, but there is still time [left before April 2018,]" said Aghvan Vartanian, a Dashnaktsutyun leader. "In my view, the challenges facing the country have two main components," he told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "One of them is security, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the like, while the other the economy # I think that there is enough room here for every person willing to serve the country." "Also, our coalition agreement makes it clear that the Republican Party has the exclusive right to nominate the prime minister's candidacy. This issue will be discussed when the time is right," added Vartanian. In televised remarks aired over the weekend, Sarkisian again declined to clarify whether he plans to become prime minister or replace Prime Minister Karen Karapetian by someone else after serving out his final presidential term. But he praised economic policies pursued by Karapetian's cabinet. Vartanian said that Dashnaktsutyun is also "satisfied" with the current government's track record so far. "Quite a bit of things have already been done in terms of both security and socioeconomic issues," he said. The veteran politician spoke the day after a joint meeting of Dashnaktsutyun's worldwide Bureau and governing body in Armenia held in Yerevan. The meeting adopted a statement which is due to be publicized on Wednesday. Dashnaktsutyun controls 7 seats in Armenia's 105-member parliament, compared with 58 seats held by the HHK. Jailed Oppositionists' Lawyers Face Disciplinary Action July 18, 2017 . Karlen Aslanian Armenia - Arrested members of an armed opposition group that seized a police station in July 2016 go on trial in Yerevan, 8Jun2017. Armenia's national bar association may take disciplinary action against two lawyers accused by law-enforcement authorities of misconduct relating to the ongoing trials of radical opposition leader Zhirayr Sefilian and his supporters. The lawyers, Mushegh Shushanian and Arayik Papikian, represent Sefilian and some of the members of his Founding Parliament movement who seized a police station in Yerevan last year. The Chamber of Advocates has launched disciplinary proceedings against Shushanian and Papikian at the request of the Armenian police and a senior prosecutor respectively. It will decide whether they violated Armenian laws and statues regulating the work of lawyers. In a letter to the chamber, the national police chief, Vladimir Gasparian, claimed that Shushanian recently made offensive comments about police officers which he said could "damage public trust in the entire law-enforcement system." In particular, Gasparian cited an interview with RFE/RL's Armenian service in which Shushanian denounced the as police as an "armed gang" ready to execute "any criminal order." Shushanian on Tuesday stood by his statements and accused the authorities of seeking to muzzle him. "This is interference in my freedom of expression, which is aimed at inhibiting the performance of my professional duties," he told RFE/RL's Armenian service. "They are trying to silence lawyers so that lawyers do not make statements or evaluations." The prosecutors' complaint against the other lawyer, Papikian, stems from his June 29 Facebook post which accused police officers of torturing one of the arrested Founding Parliament gunmen in the basement of a Yerevan court where he has been standing trial together with 17 other men. "The riposte will be just and very painful for the regime," read that statement.It also charged that the Armenian police serve a "regime that usurped power from the people." Papikian too was unrepentant about his actions. He said the disciplinary action sought by the authorities is part of what he called serious violations of the due process in the two high-profile cases. Press Review July 18, 2017 Armenia -- Newspapers for press review illustration, Yerevan, 12Jul2016 "Zhoghovurd" comments on the first anniversary of the violent seizure by armed opposition members of a police station in Yerevan, saying that the Armenian authorities have not drawn "appropriate conclusions" from the bloodshed and failed to implement "radical changes" in the country. The paper says that President Serzh Sarkisian only sacked Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian in September for creating an "imitation of change" in the run-up to the April 2017 parliamentary elections. It says that Abrahamian's successor, Karen Karapetian, instilled some hope in the public and distracted it from grave socioeconomic problems. Holding on to power remains Sarkisian's supreme goal, concludes the paper. "Hraparak" says that armed struggle against the ruling regime is totally legitimate for "some circles" in Armenia. "It's just that when armed struggle ends in success it is called a revolution," writes the paper. "But when it ends in failure it is turned into a coup and its participants end up in jail. Proponents of armed struggle must be conscious of this simple truth and meekly carry the heavy burden of imprisonment, condemnation and trials which the members of the Sasna Tsrer [armed opposition group] and their relatives now do. It is nave to expect clemency, civilized treatment or soft punishment from the individuals against whom they took up arms." "Aravot" reacts to the controversy sparked by the Russian authorities' decision to ban citizens of Armenia and other countries where Russian is not an official language from working as drivers in Russia. "Apparently an official status of the Russian language improves drivers' professional skills and they no longer need to pass driving tests in Russia," the paper comments with sarcasm. "Is this creating inconvenience for our drivers? Corresponding state bodies of Armenia must negotiate [with the Russians] to overcome those problems." The paper also says that the Russian ban is dealing a serious blow to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). It wonders whether Moscow will eventually drop its ambitious Eurasian project. "Hayots Ashkhar" reports on a renewed increase in imports of goods to Armenia which comes amid government pledges to facilitate import substitution by domestic manufacturers. The paper singles out a 70 percent year-on-year rise in imports of Turkish goods which was registered by Armenia's National Statistical Service (NSS) in the first five months of this year. It is very concerned about this trend. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org