Month: November 2006

OLLI REHN: RECOGNITION OF GENOCIDE NOT PRECONDITION FOR TURKEY EU ACCESSION
PanARMENIAN.Net
02.11.2006 15:05 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn stated
that recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not a precondition for
Turkey’s EU accession. He expressed an opinion that EU-Turkey talks
should not “hang in the air,” if Turkey “does what it should”. He
urged the EU to have a “fair” stance on Turkey. “We should keep our
promises to Turkey, if we want it to respect European standards of
basic liberties, freedom of expression and belief. We undervalue the
importance of Turkey,” stated the EU Enlargement Commissioner.
Olli Rehn underscored that there is “a vicious circle,” based
on the one hand on widely spread opinion among Turks that the EU
does not want to see Turkey among its members, on the other hand –
EU disappointment in democratic reforms in Turkey. “We should tear
down this vicious circle, otherwise we will not have any progress,”
Olli Rehn said, reports RFE/RL.

TEMPTING SPHERE
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[02:42 pm] 02 November, 2006
The further reconstruction and development of the Armenian small
hydroelectric power stations requires long-term credits and great
investments.
It can not be implemented with the sum allotted by the state budget
as it is too little.
Today, the Committee Regulating Public Services (CRPS) and “Energy
Economy Fund” convened a joint seminar to present the current state
of hydropower plants to the banks, investors and owners of small
hydroelectric power stations.
Robert Nazaryan, head of CRPS, assures that investments in the
above-mentioned sphere seem to be “attractive, promising and not
risky.”
There were 11 small hydroelectric power stations in Armenia in 1997,
most of them were tumbledown and didn’t work. In 2004 their number
was increased to 29.
At present there are already 46 small hydropower stations in
Armenia. Mr. Nazaryan assumes that they will outnumber 51 by 2010.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AN EARTHQUAKE IN ERZRUM
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[03:38 pm] 02 November, 2006
Today, a 4.8-force earthquake took place in the territory of Turkey,
65 km South-West to the city of Erzrum at about 01:19 (local time).
The underground shakes were measured 6-7 on the Richter scale.
Let us remind you that on October 2 an earthquake of 4,3 force took
place 40 km South-West to Erzrum. The underground shakes were 6 forces
and were followed by quakes measuring 4-5 and 5-6 forces.

RUSSIANS ARE GUILTY OF THE EVENTS IN JAVAKHQ
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[04:11 pm] 02 November, 2006
Today, Vahagn Chakhalyan, member of “United Javakhq” democratic
alliance, rendered a press conference where he spoke of the activity
of the alliance, his arrest and their immediate connection.
Reminder: Vahagn Chakhalyan was arrested on October 11 and was
accused of “illegal breech” of the Armenian-Georgian borderline. He
was released from the isolation of the National Security Service on
October 30.
Today, Mr. Chakhalyan qualified the motives of his arrest “mere
aspiration” as, in his words, the reasons are deeper and have political
grounds. “The general situation in Javahkq must be connected with
the worsening of Russian-Georgian relations”.
Hmayak Hovhannisyan, NA deputy, claims that the pursuit and arrest
of Chakhalyan and his partner Gourgen Shirinyan was determined by
the construction of Kars-Akhalqalaq railway.
Let us remind you that Hmayak Hovhannisyan initiated signature
collection in the National Assembly in protection of Vahagn Chakhalyan
with the request to release him. 16 NA deputies participated in the
signature collection.
The point is that “United Javakhq” alliance announced during its
first session that “the construction of Kars-Akhalqalaq railway
has political motives and represents the interests of Turkey and
Azerbaijan, i.e. to penetrate into Javakhq and to isolate Armenia”.
This is a serious concern taking into account the fact that the
Armenians of Javakhq are abandoning the territory, and the adjacent
territories of the new-built railway “will be inhabited with Turks”
in Chakhalyan’s words.
“This is really a serious threat for Javakhq as only 30 thousand
Armenians live in Javakhq today in comparison with their number in
the Soviet period – 70-80 thousand people. We had 14 deaths and only
one birth in August of the current year,” claims Mr. Chakhalyan.

UN NEW SECRETARY GENERAL MET WITH PRESIDENT OF WORLD ARMENIAN CONGRESS
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 2 2006
The elected Secretary General of UN, Ban Ki-moon, has met with the
President of the World Armenian Congress, Ara Abramyan, who is also a
good will ambassador in UNESCO, the day before in Moscow. As ITAR-TASS
reports, an interested opinion exchange took place about the role of
UN and its organizations in keeping the cultural heritage of peoples,
the development of education and science.

AUTOMOBILE MARKET IS ONE OF MOST QUICKLY GROWING IN ARMENIA
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 2 2006
According to the data of the National Statistical Service of Armenia,
a retail turnover of goods of Armenia has increased by 16,1% within 9
months, 2006, as compared with the similar period, 2005, and made to
1,052 trl drams. The automobile trade has grown most of all (by 34,2%)
and made up 48,646 bln drams. The scope of specialized automobile
trade includes the cost of sale of spare parts and component parts,
as well as technical inspection and repair of cars.
The volume of services rendered has increased by 22,1% to 338,881
bln drams within the reporting period. The retail trade has raised
by 10,9% to 536,274 bln drams.
To be noted, 85,5% or 458,369 bln drams of the total volume of
retail trade fell to the share of Yerevan. At that, the volume of
retail trade in the capital has exceeded the average indicator per
country 2,5 times. 1104.2 thsd people live in Yerevan, while 3220.0
thsd people – in the Republic in whole.

RUSSIAN MFA CRITICIZED BRYZA
PanARMENIAN.Net
02.11.2006 18:19 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Department of Information and Print of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia has criticized US Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza. In an interview with
the Financial Times Deutschland, Bryza intimidated German readers
with prospect of building of North-European gas pipeline, stating
“the gas pipeline will strengthen Germany’s dependence on Russian
gas and what happened in Ukraine past winter will take place.” The
Russian MFA reminded that the US were against the Blue Stream gas
pipeline, grounding it with Turkey and Europe allegedly refusing energy
dependence on Russia. “Life has shown that these suppositions were
false. Blue Stream became a successful example of Russian-Turkish
cooperation and at the moment opportunities of its expansion are
discussed. Unfortunately, an impression is formed that not concern
over energy security of Europe, but a principle, advocated by a range
of US officials, according to which a good pipeline is the one that
overpasses Russia, underlies Washington counteraction to Blue Stream
and now to the North-European gas pipeline,” says the statement of
the Department of Information and Print of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of Russia, reports Mediamax.

ONE OF THE LEADERS OF THE “UNITED JAVAKHK” PUBLIC MOVEMENT, VAHAGN CHAKHALYAN,
CALLED THE ACCUSATIONS, BROUGHT AGAINST HIM, FARFETCHED AND SLANDEROUS.
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 2 2006
To remind, V. Chakhalyan was arrested on October 11 by RA
authorities, having been accused of illegal crossing Armenia’s
frontier. V. Chakhalyan had actively protested against the results of
October 5 municipal elections in Georgia. He had also participated
in numerous protest actions and brawls in Akhalkalaki. He has been
set free several days ago under written undertaking not to leave the
bounds of Armenia.
In his speech in the “Pakagits” discussion club, V. Chakhalyan, having
thanked the Armenian public, the Mass Media and the parliamentarians
for support and having asked not to connect the situation in
Samtskhe-Javakhetia with the Russian- Georgian conflict, Chakhalyan
did not go into details of his case and noted that the investigation
is underway. Asked by ArmInfo correspondent if the information as if
Chakahlyan was prohibited to cross the Armenia’s frontier within 5
years for his earlier misdeed meets the reality, he answered that he
has got acquainted with this information from the Armenian press and he
is aware of nothing about it. “I can say only that all the accusations,
brought against me, are farfetched and slanderous”, V. Chakhalyan said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NAZARYAN’S OPINION ON GAS PRICE INCREASE
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[01:54 pm] 02 November, 2006
Robert Nazaryan, head of the Committee Regulating Public Services,
didn’t want to comment on the announcement of Karen Karapetyan
(executive director of “ArmRusGasArd”) on the increase of gas price.
Reminder: Karen Karapetyan announced that he was going to issue an
application to increase gas price of the industrial consumers.
Asked the question whether it is not an abuse of monopoly and violation
of preliminary arrangement, as it was formerly announced that the
gas price would not go up in Armenia for at least three years,
Robert Nazaryan answered, “I don’t want to comment on Karapetyan’s
announcement right now as the information I get on this score is from
the press and TV. But being a licensed company they have the right
to issue an application to the Committee Regulating Public Services
to review the gas tariffs every six months.
As for the arrangement, I assume it refers to the gas price brought
on the borderline and not to the tariffs of the company’s services.”
Does it give us a ground to assume that the gas price of
resident-consumers will go up in the same way?
Robert Nazaryan advised us to get the answer to this question by
Karen Karapetyan himself.
The head of the committee claims that unless they get the application,
analyze it and get acquainted with the prices, they won’t be able to
answer the journalists’ questions.

HENCEFORTH BYURAKAN OBSERVATORY WILL FOLLOW GALAXIES THROUGH THE PRISM OF PHOTOELECTRIC RECEIVER
ArmInfo News Agency, Armenia
Nov 2 2006
In spring 2007, the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory of the
Armenian National Academy of Sciences, jointly with the Special
Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Scientists, will
start implementing a joint program of exploiting a meter Schmidt
telescope, one of the largest in the world, Deputy Director of the
Byurakan Observatory Norayr Melikyan told an ArmInfo correspondent.
According to him, the Russian side gave $250 thousand for installing
the photoelectric receiver. The observatory followed photographic
methods which have become obsolete. In fact, with the new receiver
the Byurakan Observatory will be able to receive 4 times as much
information of 4 thousand pixels on a 4 cm snapshot. He noted that
due to the lack of up-to-date receivers in the observatory, out
of 5 telescopes only one is used at the moment. At the same time,
the observatory gets a lot of offers to cooperate with a number of
countries. Particularly, cooperation agreements are signed with Italy,
France and the observatory in the city of Santiago de Compostella,
Spain. It also has many offers to research problems of stellar
astronomy, galaxies’ structure, non-stationary stars and nebulae,
stellar cosmology, as well as to do radio-astronomical observations.
To note, the Byurakan Observatory established in 1946 on Aragats,
the highest mountain in Armenia, discovered and studied flashing
stars, particularly, in the Seven Sisters, and discovered galaxies
with superfluous ultraviolet radiation. The prosperity period of the
Armenian astronomy is connected with the name of Victor Hambardzumyan,
a famous Armenian scientist. The results of scientific researches
by Byurakan have obtained international recognition and formed a
basis for new directions in astrophysics. However, during the last
15 years, the number of observatory’s employees has decreased 4
times. The young employees receive a salary at the minimum rate –
15 thousand AMD (about $39).