Month: February 2012

URBAN DEVELOPMENT IS KILLING YEREVAN, SAYS ENVIRONMENTALIST

epress.am
02.21.2012

Urban development in the last 15 years has killed Yerevan –
particularly in historical, cultural, environmental and seismic
safety terms, environmentalist and Association for Sustainable Human
Development President Karine Danielyan told reporters in the Armenian
capital today.

“We already met with the fourth mayor and we didn’t find any document
that determined that the 1971 city plan doesn’t correspond to the
city’s new realities.

“Let’s close Getar River [which encircles downtown Yerevan and has
now been covered in parts] – line cafes and restaurants on top of it.

Tomorrow, climate change will come and thaw will begin; we’ll see
how the pipes handle it. They forgot the flooding that happened in
Yerevan. Residents of the street on which the Kanaker power plant is
also located are in a struggle, that city hall allowed an establishment
to be ‘planted’ on green space. When residents protested, saying
that it’s not enough that it’s on green space, there are sewage and
drinking water pipes that go below, the municipality found a solution –
he will move them. Not the establishment, but the huge water pipes –
the case is being passed on from one court to another,” she said,
summing up several issues in the capital.

She pointed out that in the name of public interest, residents were
evicted from the area in and around Northern Ave. and now there are
ads in different Arab countries promoting the country: “Dear people,
come, buy!”

“Preserving public interest are our green spaces,” the environmentalist
said, adding that in recent years, Yerevan has lost at least half of
its green space.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CONSTRUCTION WORK RESUMED IN MASHTOTS PARK OVERNIGHT

epress.am
02.21.2012

Construction work in Mashtots Park resumed late yesterday evening,
around 11:30 pm, after activists who for the second week in a row have
been camped out in the park protesting shop construction decided to
go home for the night.

Contractors resumed building the kiosks in the park next to the
maternity hospital on Mashtots Ave. in Yerevan even though up until
now they only worked during daytime hours.

News of construction resuming spread through Facebook.

The print press in Armenia, in turn, speculated today as to whom
the shops might belong: local daily Haykakan Jamanak (“Armenian
Times”), former mayor of Yerevan Gagik Beglaryan and former Minister
of Transport and Communication Eduard Madatyan are behind the
construction.

Hraparak, however, along with these two names, reports that a part
of the park belongs to RA Minister of Healthcare Harutyun Kushkyan,
while another section belongs to head of the Compulsory Enforcement
Service of Judicial Acts, Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer Mihran
Poghosyan.

NKR PRESIDENT SURRENDERS HIS CHAIR
Igor Muradyan

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 11:41:20 – 21/02/2012

This story is such a shameful one that the first decision was not to
react to this “legitimate” idiocy. However, “official” Stepanakert
has already made some remarks regarding this.

After 20 years of independence it turns out that the NKR president
still has something to say about independence, territories of our
homeland, and generally the compromise. It became known that the head
of the general information department of the NKR President’s office,
Davit Babayan, knows the problems of Karabakh policy much better,
and he would even conduct the policy of the second Armenian republic
better.

There are things which, despite a lot of enjoyment that power brings,
need to be stated and uttered clearly, precisely, without arousing
doubt. Otherwise, the efforts and heroism of thousands of people are
tossed into the garbage box the puppetry of the policy of Stepanakert
has turned into.

Ostensibly, Davit Babayan’s functions have been enlarged, and the
Karabakh president cannot even make a speech without a prompter. So
why not to shift the reshuffle experience of Armenia to Stepanakert
and review the competencies of the person who acts as president of
NKR and elect or appoint another president which might as well be
Davit Babayan. This would be a logical conclusion for the protracted
discussion of most provisions laid down in the NKR Constitution.

CONSTRUCTION AT MASHTOTS AVENUE AT NIGHT

11:03 am | Today | Social

Rigorous construction of a stand is underway at Mashtots Park where
environmentalists had gathered and had stood until 19:00 last night.

Builders came to the park nearly half an hour ago and are now placing
the roofs, doors and windows of the stands.

Nearly 40 police officers are overseeing the construction. A bus that
transported the police officers is parked at the street near the park.

Neither the police officers nor the builders wished to comment on
the reason why there was so much commotion at night.

Nearly ten environmentalists arrived at the scene as soon as they heard
the news regarding the construction. They didn’t expect to see this
because they still hoped that Yerevan Municipality would hear what they
had to say and would refrain from placing trade stands at the park.

Before leaving the park, the environmentalists declared that they
were leaving the supervision of the park up to the police officers
and that they would gather there at 10 in the morning.

MAYOR FAILS TO FULFILL PLEDGE

12:30 pm | Today | Social

“We have been here since morning. There are nearly 40-50 police
officers following up on the construction. They promised that they
wouldn’t let the builders do anything until morning, but now they are
following up to make sure the construction continues. The workers are
currently placing the windows of the stands,” environmentalist-activist
Vahram Soghomonyan told “A1+”.

Last evening, environmentalists in Yerevan managed to stop the
construction of stands, but construction restarted at 12 a.m. last
night.

The environmentalists have been fighting against the placement of the
trade stands demolished on Abovyan Street and for the preservation
of the public park at Mashtots Avenue for the past eleven days.

We remind that Mayor of Yerevan Taron Margaryan had pledged to take
the environmentalists’ proposals into account to preserve the park,
but yesterday he announced that the park was not a green zone.

CSTO SECRETARY GENERAL TO DISCUSS STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS IN ARMENIA

NEWS.AM
February 21, 2012 | 14:45

YEREVAN. – CSTO Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha will discuss
strategic documents during the upcoming visit to Yerevan.

The meeting is scheduled for the midst of March, he said during the
space bridge Moscow-Astana-Minsk-Yerevan-Kiev-Chisinau on Tuesday
adding strategic documents are being drafted under the instruction
of the heads of CSTO member states and will be discussed with experts
during the meeting.

As for military-technical cooperation, Bordyuzha said that Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a cooperation memorandum during
his visit in 2010 to establish military enterprises.

ARMENIAN OFFICER, KILLED BY AZERBAIJANI MILITARY MEMBER, IS REMEMBERED IN BUDAPEST

news.am
February 21, 2012 | 12:35

A public rally commemorating the eight anniversary of the Armenian
officer Gurgen Margaryan’s killing by the Azerbaijani military member,
Ramil Safarov, was held on February 19 near the Armenian cross-stone
placed in downtown Budapest.

The event was organized by the Armenian community of Hungary, and
advisor Arthur Musheghyan of Armenia’s Embassy in Vienna was also
in attendance.

During the rally, the Hungarian Armenians strongly condemned this
brutal murder yet again, and they noted that this is a result of the
ongoing policy of militarism and nationalism in Azerbaijan.

Wreathes were laid before the cross-stone on behalf of Armenia’s
embassy and the Armenian community.

The event was covered by Hungarian media.

From: Baghdasarian

FLAWS IN INVESTIGATING OFFICIALS’ NEGLIGENCE IN DINK MURDER CASE

armradio.am
21.02.2012 14:52

The summary of a report prepared by the State Audit Institution
(DDK) regarding the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink
has revealed that mistakes were made in the investigation of public
officials who were suspected to have acted negligently in preventing
the murder, Today’s Zaman reports.

The investigation that followed Dink’s death revealed that the police
had been tipped off to the plans for the murder of the journalist;
however, the police failed to intervene. The summary of the DDK
report said the sequence of negligent acts by public officials was
not examined as a whole and no investigation was launched separately
into different state institutions.

It said the method adopted during the investigation of public officials
led to the failure of not investigating all allegations about public
officials as a whole.

The report noted that as a result of this failure, the seriousness of
the actions of public officials in the run up to the murder has not
been understood and the link between their actions and the murder could
not be established, leading to the failure of all of the investigations
into public officials.

The Ä°stanbul 14th High Criminal Court issued its final ruling in the
Dink trial last month, which failed to please those expecting justice
to be served. During the process, lawyers for the Dink family and the
co-plaintiffs in the case presented evidence indicating that hitman
Ogun Samast did not act alone. Samast stood trial in a juvenile
court because he was a minor at the time of the murder. He was
recently sentenced to 22 years, 10 months in prison by the court. In
a separate trial, two gendarmerie officers were convicted on charges
of dereliction of duty in the run-up to the Dink murder.

Another suspect, Yasin Hayal, was given life in prison for inciting
Samast to murder. However, Erhan Tuncel, who worked as an informant for
the Trabzon Police Department, was found not guilty of masterminding
the murder. The prosecution believes the killers are affiliated with
the Ergenekon network, a shadowy criminal network that has alleged
links within the state and whose suspected members are currently
standing trial on charges of plotting to overthrow the government.

TRY AGAIN: COUNCIL IN TURKEY URGES NEW TRIAL IN DINK CASE

Society | 21.02.12 | 12:23

A top Turkish official state body is saying a new trial should be held
to find the killer or killers of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink who
was assassinated in 2007 outside the newsroom of his Agos newspaper
in Istanbul.

The Turkish Presidency’s State Supervisory Council on Monday
recommended that top police and gendarmerie officials be prosecuted
due to their alleged negligence.

According to Hurriyet Daily News, the suggestion “amounts to a
non-binding call to the judiciary to restart the Dink murder trial
and places the suspected public servants next to the gunman.”

The Council also touched on the need to reform the secret services in
order to have the ability to prevent the murders of key personalities
or social unrest like the bloody incidents that took place in Sivas
in 1993 or in KahramanmaraÅ~_ in 1978, Hurriyet reports.

“Hrant Dink’s murder must be evaluated as a whole, starting from
when Dink was singled out as a target and threatened,” the 650-page
report said.

President Abdullah Gul ordered the Council to investigate the murder
because the Jan. 17 verdict against the perpetrators did not satisfy
public sensitivities.

ARMENIAN SOLDIER IS DEAD BECAUSE OF THE ILLNESS

21.02.12, 13:52

Armenian soldier Narek Martirosyan was dead at Artsakh Defense Army
hospital on February 20. Panorama.am informs quoting to Mari Sargsyan,
head of the press service of investigative department of the Armenian
Ministry of Defense that Narek Martirosyan was transferred to the
hospital with pneumonia. The soldier was dead on February 20, at 9:50.

M. Sargsyan informed that the case in under investigation and the
criminal case launched. The corpse will be examined.