Month: September 2013

Catholicosate of Cilicia to take part in conference of World Council of Churches

16:20, 14 September, 2013

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS: Catholicos of the Holy See of
Cilicia Aram I hosted representatives of Armenian Church
University Students’ Association in Pikfaia monastery. `Armenpress’
was informed from Antillas that the representatives of the
Association informed Aram I about their future plans. Welcoming the
work done by the Association and new programs Catholicos of
the Holy See of Cilicia stressed the important role of the Association
in the life of Armenian nation and especially in Lebanese-Armenians
life.

Aram I also reminded that many representatives of the Association have
a high position today and serve in almost all Armenian
communities. He also mentioned that with the help of Holy See of
Cilicia the Armenian Church University Students’ Association will
continue to take part in international, inter-church and
inter-religion summits. In this context Aram I mentioned that two
members of
the Association will be included in the delegation of Catholicosate of
the Holy See of Cilicia which will take part in the 10th conference
of World Council of Churches in South Korea.

From: A. Papazian

Customs Union is `backward province’ – Ukrainian analyst

September 14, 2013 | 14:06

The Customs Union is a `backward province,’ and that is why the
selection between the European Union (EU) and the Customs Union is
more than apparent for Ukraine, stated Ukrainian analyst and political
advisor Alexander Paliy.

The analyst is confident that the Customs Union will bring no benefits
to Ukraine, Gazeta.ua reports.

`The Customs Union is a union of backward, feudal economies, where the
rights of the man, the citizen are not protected. It gives no
innovation to the world,’ Paliy noted.

As per the analyst, the EU, on the other hand, is a union of leading
economic relations.

`The European Union is a major center which comprises 23 percent of
the global GDP, in the case when the indicator of the Customs Union is
barely 3 percent,’ Paliy explained.

He also stressed that the EU and the Customs Union cannot be compared
with one another.

`One of the centers provides cultural, political and economic
standards to the world, ever since the 19th century. [But] the other
center is just a backward province,’ Alexander Paliy concluded.

To note, following the talks that were held on September 3 in Moscow
between Armenian and Russian Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Vladimir
Putin, Sargsyan had announced that Armenia plans to join the Customs
Union and subsequently engage in the formation of the Eurasian
Economic Union.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

Expert: Armenia’s decision to join the Customs Union was made from the
USA’s sanction

by Marianna Lazarian
ARMINFO
Saturday, September 14, 15:31

Armenia’s decision to join the Customs Union was made from the USA’s
sanction, a member of the “Karabakh” committee, former adviser of the
first president of Armenia, Ashot Manucharyan, said at today’s
press-conference.

“The European Union and Europe are two different ideas. The European
Union is nothing but a structure through which the USA exercise
control over Europe, and if Armenia signed an agreement with the EU,
it would be forced to reconstruct the power structure in the country
driving it towards the American system, which is not yet beneficial to
the USA and which we may avoid in case of joining the Customs Union”,
– he said. He also added that such a decision was a surprise for the
authorities of Armenia, as in fact the active negotiations with the EU
for three years were ignored. The expert said that the decision to
join the Customs Union was adopted under Russia’s strong pressure. The
Customs Union seems to be an economic union, but actually, it is a
geo-political one, which distributes the influence spheres at the
world arena.

“This decision will become the beginning of the new war between the
USA and Russia, but not its ending”, – Manucharyan concluded.

Armenian Oligarchs Were Called To Moscow

People born in the Soviet Union are used to perceiving the Kremlin as
the top of the state-criminal pyramid. Their children are also
affected by their perception though over the past two decades of
independence their fathers have done nothing to get rid of the pyramid
but further strengthened it.

The only condition for the existence of a lot of Armenian officials
and politicians is having the pyramid in place and their place in the
pyramid. They are used to be humiliated by someone overhead and
humiliate those standing lower. Horizontal relations are not
acceptable in such a society.

The EU has built horizontal governance. There are no pyramids,
single-handed government, there is a system that is based on
complementation and checks and balances.

The European system itself is not comprehensible for the Armenian
criminal oligarchy and affiliated persons. Therefore they announced
that what European officials say is not grounded. Instead, what Putin
said is to be accepted and followed. And there is no need to replace
the pyramid with obscure horizontal relations which suppose
responsibility, initiative, independence in decisions and control.

An interesting situation is in place. The criminal oligarchy supports
actively the Customs Union and cheers Putin for bringing Europe to its
knees. The social networks and adequate social and political circles
are discussing the harms of the Customs Union. And the second reaction
is perceived by the Russian mass media as genuine. Perhaps because the
Armenian oligarchs are not taken seriously by anyone. They are just
bolts of a big system.

The Armenian oligarchs do not expect any economic use or harm from the
Customs Union. They know that in the Customs Union, like in the
Armenian-Russian relations, everything is determined by the criminal
rules, not laws. They are horrified by not having someone to agree
with in the EU.

In Europe, the statements of Fule or someone else are not an
imperative but the system is. Meanwhile, the Armenian oligarchs are
not used to working with a system, they need someone to give them
orders to obey.
Naira Hayrumyan
17:50 14/09/2013
Story from Lragir.am News:

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Is Money of Armenian Officials in Europe and US Endangered?

Rumors came that the Armenian government-business circles are worried
about their money and property abroad, namely the United States and
Europe. Hovik Abrahamyan’s statement `let’s first resolve our issues
to move on to Karabakh’ was interpreted from this point of view. There
is nothing to be surprised because all the Armenian elite care for is
their money.

The point is that the decision to join the Customs Union was followed
by the dominant opinion in the west that some sanctions should be
applied against Armenia. In this context, considering the nature of
the Armenian `elite’, a check of their bank accounts and other assets
for their origin and other grounds is considered, which might
subsequently be frozen. It will not be difficult to do this
considering that the money and assets are mostly illegal.

Equally the Armenian ruling elite is thinking on how to `save’ their
money. In particular, they are considering some legislative amendments
which might allow qualifying that money as `western investments’ and
legitimize them. The problem is that the Armenian
businessman-officials declare only the money that is `legal’ and is
kept in Armenian banks. Money hidden abroad is said to amount to
billions of dollars.

Apparently, big scandals and revelations should be expected soon.

13:53 14/09/2013
Story from Lragir.am News:

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Russian Cup: Armenian striker brings victory to Spartak (video)

19:25 – 14.09.13

In the eighth round of the Russian Football Cup, Moscow’s Spartak
gained advantage over Volga (Nizhny Novgorod) thanks to a goal hit by
Armenian forward Yura Movsisyan.

The spostsman, who has recently joined Valery Karpin’s team, struck
the historic goal at the 32nd minute of the match.

He netted the bal into the rival’s fence with his head after receiving
a pass from Dmitry Kombarov.

Movsisyan has hit his fourth goal in the current championship.

Spartak, with 17 points, remain the second on the tournament list
after CSK (20 points).

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

European Union or Eurasian Union? Ukraine will hold a referendum

15:25 09.09.2013

Customs Union, Ukraine

`Ukraine should not contradistinguish European integration and
cooperation with the Eurasian Community,’ Viktor Yanukovych said in
his interview to the TV channel `Ukraine’.

The President reminded that several documents that determine the
status of Ukraine in relations with the Customs Union and the Eurasian
Union had already been signed.

`A referendum will be necessary when considering entry into this or
that community to which we will have to delegate a part of our
sovereign rights provided for by the Constitution. In this case, only
Ukrainian people can make a decision,’ the President noted.

Woodrow Wilson

Negotiating world peace

America’s remarkable 28th president

Sep 7th 2013

Both eyes on posterity

Wilson. By A. Scott Berg. Putnam Adult; 832 pages; $40. To be
published in Britain in October by Simon & Schuster; £30. Buy
fromAmazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

`WE SAVED the world,’ President Woodrow Wilson said in 1918, `and I do
not intend to let those Europeans forget it.’ Wilson was sailing to
Europe for a peace conference that would shape the world’s future. The
first world war had ended, and the president was determined to create
an international governing body to prevent such massive bloodshed from
ever happening again. Europeans welcomed him with unabashed cheers. It
was the first time a sitting American president had stepped onto their
soil.

Less than a year later, Wilson had a stroke and lay bed-bound at the
White House. His dreams of a League of Nations would take hold, but he
could not persuade America to join. Powerful Republicans in the Senate
feared yielding sovereignty (a familiar refrain today). The result was
that the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which created
the league and set the terms of the peace. It became Wilson’s greatest
disappointment.

Negotiating world peace was not what Wilson had in mind when he took
office in 1913. Instead he had grand plans for reforming his own
country. He spent the first years of his presidency dismantling
tariffs, introducing a new federal income tax, battling the
anti-competitive activities of big business and creating the Federal
Reserve system of banks. His victories were big, and other landmarks
soon followed, such as the approval of the 1920 constitutional
amendment allowing women to vote.

A. Scott Berg, who won a Pulitzer prize for his life of Charles
Lindbergh, has written a detailed account lionising the man who, he
says, experienced `the most meteoric rise in American history’. After
serving as president of Princeton University, Wilson spent just two
years as governor of New Jersey before a tide of progressivism carried
him to the presidency. Wilson tried to keep America out of the war.
But faced with the inevitable by the spring of 1917, he quickly built
an industrial war machine that left a legacy of American might.

There is plenty to dislike about Wilson. Despite his Presbyterian
morality, he was a racist. Born in the South shortly before the civil
war, he oversaw the segregation of federal agencies as well as the
armed forces. His policies left blacks `discouraged and bitter’, in
the words of Booker T. Washington, a renowned educator. Another bad
decision was clinging to the presidency after his stroke, leaving his
second wife, Edith, in near-total control of his activities.

Caught up in the day-by-day lurch of Wilson’s presidency, Mr Berg
fails to analyse some of history’s most pressing questions. How did
Wilson, who grew up in southern states devastated by America’s civil
war and resentful of harsh federal oversight afterwards, agree to a
peace treaty that humiliated Germany? And what might have happened if
America had joined the League of Nations, as Wilson had so desperately
wanted? The league failed in its basic objective of securing the world
against another great war. But a more enduring intergovernmental body,
the United Nations, grew out of the next conflagration. Mr Berg stops
at Wilson’s death. For better and worse, the story of the 28th
president goes on.

>From the print edition: Books and arts

From: A. Papazian

ASSOCIATION CHAIRMAN DEFENDS ARMENIA’S MEMBERSHIP IN CUSTOMS UNION

YEREVAN, September 12. / ARKA /. Chairman of the Union of Armenian
Domestic Commodity Producers Vazgen Safarian defended today president
Sargsyan’s decision to make Armenia a member of the Russian-led Customs
Union saying it is going to have a positive impact on the economy.

“Membership in the Customs Union will become a direct stimulus for
the development of the Armenian economy. In the recent past we and
Russia shared a common economic area, industrial and economic culture,
our factories worked by using similar technology,” Safarian said
on Thursday.

Safarian brushed aside as groundless fears that by joining the Customs
Union Armenia will lose its political independence.

“No country in the world – from the U.S. to Mozambique- is absolutely
independent. All countries are in a certain economic, political and
military-strategic dependence on each other,” he said.

Safarian said Armenia may offer to its future partners in the union
brandies, agricultural, industrial products and textile goods.

Safarian added that a membership in the Customs Union does not mean
Armenia will have to cut its ties with Europe. “Those who are engaged
in trade with the EU countries should continue it, because Europe
needs the goods we export, especially ore and raw materials,” he said.

According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, Armenian
exports to EU in January-December 2012 amounted to $560.3 million and
that to Russia , Kazakhstan and Belarus, which make the Customs Union-
to about $293 million

In January -June 2013 this year Armenian exports to EU dropped
by 3 percent year-on-year to $250. 5 million, while exports
to the Customs Union member countries grew to $149.4 million
from $125 in the first half of last year. -0- – See more at:

U.S. CO-CHAIR OF OSCE MINSK GROUP TURNS OFF QUESTION ABOUT GENEVA CONVENTION VIOLATION BY AZERBAIJAN

YEREVAN, September 12. /ARKA/. /. James Warlick, American co-chair
of the OSCE Minsk Group, speaking Thursday at a news conference
in Yerevan, avoided answering a question about Hakob Injigulyan,
an Armenian conscript who lost his way, crossed Karabakh-Azerbaijan
border and captured by Azerbaijanis on August 8.

Azerbaijani TV channels showed two interviews with Injigulyan, who
was dressed in Azerbaijani uniform. The Azerbaijani side, in clear
breach of Geneva Convention, was long barring ISRC representatives
from visiting the captive.

Asked if he has discussed Injigulyan imbroglio in Baku, Warlick said
he had no comments on the matter. He said the only aim of his visit
is to listen to the sides and understand and assess the situation.

—0—

– See more at: