Month: March 2007

CONFLICT OCCURRED BETWEEN AZERBAIJANI AND TURKISH STUDENTS IN TURKEY

Arminfo
2007-03-01 12:33:00

Azerbaijani students tore the posters hung on the walls of their hostel
"Hrant Dink and nations’ friendship" on the 15th anniversary of the
Khojaly genocide. Conflict occurred between the Azerbaijani students
and the leftists who hung the posters on the walls. The leftists wanted
to spread special lists devoted to Hrant Dink outside the university,
but the Azerbaijani students did not allow them. Turkish gendarme
forces prevented the conflict. Leftists, supporting the idea of
"Nations’ friendship" held a meeting devoted on the conflict with the
Azerbaijani students and decided to change the posters. They hung the
posters "We all are Armenians, we all are Hrant, we all are Turks,
we all are Kurds, we all are Arabs" on the walls. Following this,
the leftists organized rally from the university to the hostel as
a protest against the Azerbaijani students’ tearing the posters. No
incident was recorded during the rally.

AZERI HACKER CRACKS AZERI PUBLIC TELEVISION’S WEB-SITE

Arminfo
2007-03-01 14:39:00

An Azeri hacker cracked the web-site of the Azeri Public Television
again.

The Azeri Day.az news agency reports that a message appeared on the
site of the Azeri Public Television addressed to Bacioglu, an Azeri
hacker, Thursday.

The message is as follows: "Dear Bacioglu, an e-war has recently
started between Armenian hackers and you. Certainly, this war is
inefficient. You crack our sites, and we crack yours. We wouldn’t like
to wage a new war. We are Caucasians, we should live in peace. The
Caucasus is our and your historic lands. We didn’t want to kill people
in Karabakh either. Everything that happened is in the past. Actually,
the war in Karabakh is politicians’ affair, let them address these
issues. And we, programmers, should respect each other. Dear Bacioglu,
we believe you’ll understand us. We believe you are a professional
hacker not only in Azerbaijan, but in the whole Caucasus. You’ve
already proved that you are the best of all. We think it is time to
make friends. Best regards, AXTEAM Group Yerevan, Armenia".

The content of the text made the Day.az think that the message wasn’t
written by Armenians. Probably, the web-site of the Public Television
was cracked by Bacioglu himself, who three days ago cracked another
Azeri site – the Azeri tricolor, the Day.az reports. The source
reminds that this hacker had promised to crack dozens of Armenian
sites on the day of the Khojaly tragedy, but he failed to do it and
decided to get himself noticed by cracking Azeri web-sites.

NDP MADE ALLIANCE WITH CIVIL SOCIETY, SHAVARSH KOCHARIAN SAYS

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The National Democratic Party will
take part in the parliamentary elections "in alliance with civil
society." Shavarsh Kocharian, Chairman of National Democratic Party
(NDP), reported this at the March 1 press conference. He said that
in the party’s proportional list the person following him is Hranush
Kharatian, Chairwoman of National Center for Genealogical Studies NGO,
Head of Department for Affairs of Religion and National Minorities
under RA government, and the third person on the list is Taron
Arakelian, Head of Havatarmutiun (Loyalty) civil initiative. Another
seven members of initiative are also on the list. S. Kocharian also
stated that 27 out of 77 candidates included in NDP’s proportional list
are women. In S. Kocharian’s words, the more democratic the country
is, the larger is women’s presence in government sphere. And the
circumstance that the number of women is small in Armenian government
and parliament is the evidence that the country has serious problems
in connection with building democratic state. The issue of NDP’s
nomination by majoritarian system has not been determined yet. As S.
Kocharian stated, though he has always nominated his candidature by
majoritarian system, this time receiving maximum votes by proportional
system is primary for the party and it will concentrate all forces
for achieving this purpose.

PROBABLY, RA NATIONAL ASSEMBLY MARCH 1 SITTINGS WILL ALSO FAIL

Noyan Tapan
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. Only seven deputies had been registered
at the beginning of RA National Assembly March 1 plenary sittings,
while at least 66 MPs should have been registered for starting the
sittings. Probably, plenary sittings of four-day session’s last day
will fail as the day before.

According to NA Regulations, if no quorum is provided within three
hours, the sitting will be announced as officially closed at 15:00.

LEADER OF HNCHAK PARTY CONSIDERS THAT BY ITS ACTIONS OPPOSITION CONTRIBUTED TO FULFILMENT OF AUTHORITIES’ SCENARIO

Noyan Tapan
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The Hnchak Social-Democratic Party
will run for the elections independently and only by proportional
system." Party leader Lyudmila Sargsian reported this at the March 1
press conference. She declared that Hnchak being one of traditional
Armenian parties exerted all efforts for uniting the opposition
forces. However, in her words, "today we can establish that all
attempts of uniting the opposition failed." L. Sargsian declared that
the big political forces bear the main responsibility for opposition’s
breaking. "The opposition deciding to run for the elections one
by one was not able to counteract to the mechanisms created by
the authorities. They should not have put the people in conditions
for the people not to know whom to elect." In L. Sargsian’s words,
the main reason of opposition’s failure to unite were the personal
ambitions of its leaders and preference of narrow party interests to
general ones. She did not agree to the statement of representatives
of People’s Party of Armenia that they did everything possible for
uniting the opposition. In her words, the conditions "dictated by PPA
were primordially unacceptable for everybody, as it was impossible to
give PPA opposition members majority of places in the proportional
list. L. Sargsian declared that the initiative of opposition’s
unification mainly belongs to the Zharangutiun (Heritage) Party
and its leader Raffi Hovannisian, as well as to the Hanrapetutiun
(Republic) Party and the National-Democratic Union. She mentioned
that R. Hovannisian was quite sincerely ready to make many concessions
for the sake of forming a united bloc.

MANUK GASPARIAN: OPPOSITION DID NOT MANAGE TO UNITE FIRST OF ALL DUE TO PERSONAL AMBITIONS

Noyan Tapan
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. The Bargavach Hayastan (Prosperous
Armenia) and Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) will make a majority
in the future parliament, at that "the number of Bargavach Hayastan’s
deputies at NA will exceed the number of RPA’s deputies by 3-4." Manuk
Gasparian, Chairman of Democratic Way Party, forecast this at the March
1 press conference. And OYP, ARFD, PPA, National Unity, as well as the
Democratic Way Party headed by him, as M. Gasparian affirmed, should
fight "for their place in the sun." The Democratic Way Party leader
said that a number of opposition forces, in particular, the People’s
Party of Armenia, Hanrapetutiun (Republic), Orinats Yerkir (Country
of Law) and Zharangutiun (Heritage) did not agree to unite with the
Democratic Way Party, from which M. Gasparian drew a conclusion that
they "considered him as a weak person." And on the whole, in his
words, the oppositionists did not unite first of all due to their
personal ambitions. M. Gasparian said that he is the first person on
the joint preelectoral list of the Democratic Way Party and the Union
of National Democrats, the second is Chairman of Union of National
Democrats Arshak Sadoyan, the third is member of RA National Assembly
National Unity faction Aghasi Arshakian and the third economist Edvard
Aghajanov. He said that the name of A. Arshakian currently receiving
hospital treatment was registered in the National Unity’s proportional
list introduced to CEC on February 27, approximately in one of 30th
out of 25 places and the Democratic Way Party gave him the third
place of its list "for gladdening the latter." M. Gasparian said
that A. Sadoyan will also take part in the parliamentary elections
by majoritarian system, at Yerevan electoral district N 12.

In M.Gasparian’s words, he is happy to cooperate with A. Sadoyan and
is convinced that together they will succeed without fail.

PEOPLE’S PARTY SUBMITS APPLICATION OF NOMINATION TO RA CEC

Noyan Tapan
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. On March 1, the People’s Party submitted
an application on nomination by proportional system to RA Central
Electoral Commission. As Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed by
Commission Secretary Hamlet Abrahamian, 44 candidates are included
in the preelection list. The list is headed by Party Chairman Tigran
Karapetian.

POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT AND PROPAGANDA IN ARMENIA ARE USED MORE THAN PR, "PR ASSOCIATION" DEPUTY CHAIRMAN BELIEVES

Noyan Tapan
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. Propaganda and advertisement, then
technologies of ties with the society are 70-80% used in the political
propaganda of Armenia. Arman Saghatelian, the Deputy Chairman of the
Armenian Public Relations Association ("PR Association," www. apra.am)
stated about it at the March 1 press conference. At the same time
he mentioned that the political advertisement in Armenia does not
solve the problem of making this or that political force or figure
recognizable as everybody already knows all the political forces amd
figures having weight, and the people is already tired of propaganda.

In A.Saghatelian’s words, during the propaganda of the parliamentary
elections to take place in May the competition will mainly be promoted
to occupy place in the information field. As for the PR, candidates
nominated by the majoritarian electoral system more use technologies
of that sphere. It was mentioned that "black PR" technologies both
in the way of compromising and organization of spreading negative
information about the opponents will also be used in the propaganda
of the expected parliamentary elections. Responding the Noyan Tapan
correspondent’s question, A.Saghatelian mentioned that more money
will be spent in the propaganda of the parliamentary elections this
year than during the previous elections.

RA CEC REGISTERS IMPEACHMENT BLOC

Noyan Tapan
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. At the March 1 sitting RA CEC by
unanimous decision registered the Impeachment preelectoral bloc
formed by the Democratic Homeland Party headed by Petros Makeyan and
Conservative Party headed by Mikayel Hayrapetian. After CEC decision
the bloc receives an opportunity to introduce documents necessary
for nomination of candidates, including the preelection list, to
CEC. At the same sitting CEC declined the application on accreditation
of observers of Yerevan Auxiliary Law-abiding Detachments NGO. The
rejection was conditioned by the circumstance that issues of democracy
and human rights are not included in the organization’s regulations,
which is necessary for registering an observation mission. The decision
was made with 6 votes in favor and 3 abstained.

BARGAVACH HAYASTAN PARTY SUBMITS APPLICATION OF NOMINATION TO RA CEC

Noyan Tapan
Mar 01 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 1, NOYAN TAPAN. On March 1, the Bargavach Hayastan
(Prosperous Armenia) Party submitted an application on nomination by
proportional system to RA Central Electoral Commission (CEC). As Noyan
Tapan correspondent was informed by CEC Secretary Hamlet Abrahamian,
there are 112 candidates on the preelection list of Bargavach Hayastan
Party. The list is headed by Party Chairman, RA MP, Chairman of
Armenian National Olympic Committee Gagik Tsarukian.