Author: Andres-Papazian

news.am, Armenia
March 12 2011

Armenian Speaker conveyed condolences to Japanese counterpart

March 12, 2011 | 13:43

Armenian Parliament Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan addressed a letter of
condolence to President of the House of Councilors Takeo Nishioka and
Speaker of the House of Representatives Takahiro Yokomichi.

In his letter the Armenian Speaker offered his sincere condolences to
the Japanese people on the numerous victims and damage caused by the
earthquake.

On March 11, the biggest earthquake (8.9 magnitude) in the recent
years hit the northeast of Japan, triggering a 10-meter tsunami and
followed by several powerful aftershocks. The epicenter is located 373
to north-east from Japan’s capital, Tokyo at the depth of 24
kilometers.

At least 1000 people were killed. There is a growing risk of a
significant radiation leakage at a Japanese nuclear power plant.

Thirty Armenian citizens were not affected, Spokesman for Armenian
Foreign Ministry Tigran Balayan told.

From: A. Papazian

Authorities and opposition have to make correct inference to avoid
repeating past mistakes

March 12, 2011 – 19:25 AMT 15:25 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

Political processes in Armenia are following the rights course. Over
the last 2 years, specific formats were created, processes entered a
natural course, and rallies were being held in correct form, Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan stated.

As he noted, both the authorities and the opposition have to make
correct inferences to avoid repeating past mistakes. `On both sides,
there are people who have enough experience to know the difference
between the state and the statehood. They can see the line between
political aspirations and motherland, statehood and national issues. I
believe no one must turn the political goals into an end in itself,’
the President stressed.

From: A. Papazian

Both the authorities and people of Armenia strive to improve the situation

March 12, 2011 – 19:20 AMT 15:20 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

On March 12, in Armenian town of Tsakhkadzor, Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan commented on the issues in the sector of agriculture as well
as programs of reforms to repair the situation.

As the President noted, the global crisis as well as the events
preceding it caused a number of agricultural problems both for
authorities and the people.

Among positive reforms the president pointed out those in pension
sector. `Both the authorities and the people strive to improve the
situation. We’re ready to discuss any constructive suggestions aimed
at resolving specific issues,’ the President said.

Among the reforms currently implemented the president listed those in
police, legal system, tax and customs spheres.

From: A. Papazian

Russian translation of a book about Soghomon Tehlirian to be presented
in Yerevan

March 12, 2011 – 19:02 AMT 15:02 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

On March 15, Armenian National Library will host a presentation of a
Russian translation of Vahan Minakhortyan’s book, Soghomon Tehlirian:
Memoirs, Talat’s Terror.

The book features Soghomon Tehlirian’s memoirs of 1915 Genocide, time
span before the assassination of Talat Pasha, a trial in 1921.

The preface to the book was contributed by Armenian Writer Silva Kaputikyan.

The book was published in 1953 in Cairo and republished in Yerevan in
1993. Russian translation is authored by Egor Sergiev.

Soghomon Tehlirian (1897-1960) was a native of Yerzka, and Armenian
Genocide survivor. He assassinated the former Grand Vizir Talat Pasha
in the Charlottenburg District of Berlin, Germany in broad daylight
and in the presence of many witnesses on March 15, 1921 as an act of
vengeance for his role in orchestrating the Armenian Genocide.
Tehlirian was tried for murder, but was eventually acquitted by the
German court.

From: A. Papazian

Azerbaijan closest to repeating Arab scenario among CIS states, expert says

March 12, 2011 – 15:33 AMT 11:33 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

Azerbaijan is the closest to repeating the Arab scenario among the CIS
states. The fact causes serious concern among the country’s
authorities, according to Islamic studies expert.

As Igor Dobaev stated, “riots in Arabic East can have a negative
influence on Central Asia and South Caucasus, which face the same
situation with a drastic difference in well-being among lower and
higher circles.” “Azerbaijan is the closest to facing the consequences
of such a situation,” the Russian expert noted.

“The recent riots is a new generation of so-called “color
revolutions.” Simultaneous outbreaks are most often caused by the
external influence,” the expert said, characterizing the phenomenon as
“chain wars”, Rosbalt reported.

From: A. Papazian

news.am, Armenia
March 12 2011

Nagorno-Karabakh peace process militarized, Armenian MP says

March 12, 2011 | 01:08

The international community represented by the OSCE Minsk Group has
too late come to realize the fact that the Nagorno-Karabakh peace
process has been militarized and threatens to fail. Therefore, it has
passed from declarations to practical steps and ordered investigation
into incidents on the line of contact, Styepa Safaryan, Chairman of
the Heritage parliamentary faction, told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“Now, too late, the international community has come to realize it
cannot go on like this and concrete steps need to be made. Otherwise,
the negotiation process will fail and military actions are
inevitable,” the MP said.
He doubts any impartial investigation can be conducted under the OSCE
Minsk Group`s auspices.

“If a really impartial investigation is conducted, it is enough for
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to be brought before international
tribunal. But no impartial investigation will be conducted, and the
process will end in regular declarative statements by the OSCE Minsk
Group co-chairs,” Safaryan said. He pointed out that the OSCE is able
to conduct an impartial investigation if it really wants to – the
organization has all the necessary mechanisms and experience.

The OSCE MG issued a statement instructing Personal Representative of
the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk to get
ready for investigations into incidents on the line of contact between
the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan armed forces. With this end in
view, the OSCE MG Co-Chairs are to arrive in the region, official
Yerevan welcomed the initiative.

From: A. Papazian

Orange County Register, CA
March 11 2011

Editorial: Freer economies endure quakes better

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

As we know in California, earthquakes can be the ultimate in
devastation. They’re so terrifying because the very earth shakes out
from under you. So we sympathize with the victims of Japan’s
8.9-magnitude earthquake March 11, which was followed by a tsunami.
Preliminary death tolls ran to more than 1,000.

But it could have been worse. Japan is one of the most developed
nations in the world, with an extensive capitalist economy. It’s not
perfect. Some protectionism and high taxes of recent years have
retarded Japan’s growth. And Prime Minister Naoto Kan has warned of a
“Greece-like” debt crisis. Well, it’s not quite that bad. Unlike
Greece, whose debt mostly is owned by foreign banks, Japan’s
government debt mostly is owned by Japanese banks and persons, giving
it more flexibility.

It’s this strong, developed economy that has prevented many more
casualties. “Nations that are richer and more plugged into the global
economy have proven more resilient in national disasters,” Dan
Griswold told us; he’s director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies
at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Nothing will protect you from an
8.9 earthquake. But a lot more people would be dead if Japan were a
poor and isolated country.”

A good example was Haiti’s earthquake last year. One of the poorest
nations in the world, its shoddy buildings crumbled under a 7.0
earthquake. It’s still not known exactly how many died, but ABC News
reported in January that Haiti’s “government has revised upward its
previous estimate of the death toll from 230,000 to 316,000, meaning
about 3 percent of Haiti’s entire population perished.”
On the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, Japan ranks
20th out of 179 countries, and Haiti 133rd. (The United States is
ninth.) Even before the earthquake, Heritage noted, Haiti’s
anti-market problems included: “Protection of investors and property
is severely compromised by weak enforcement, a paucity of updated laws
to handle modern commercial practices, and a dysfunctional and
resource-poor legal system. … Corruption is perceived as rampant.”

A 6.9 earthquake in Armenia in 1988 killed about 25,000 people.
Armenia had been forced into the Soviet Union and its socialist
economic system in 1922, and so lived in penury. The earthquake
brought rare glimpses of truth from the controlled communist media of
the day. Komsomolskaya Pravda, a communist newspaper, asked, “Where
were the seismologists, the architects and the construction workers
that drafted and built the houses that fell apart like matchboxes?”
Shoddily constructed nine-story buildings became “common graves for
many.”

Armenia’s agony, showcasing the economic disaster of socialism, was a
catalyst for the end of the Soviet empire in 1991, the same year
Armenia became independent.

As with the Armenian and Haitian earthquakes, global foreign aid will
be flowing into Japan, especially from the United States. California
earthquake rescue experts are the best in the world and will be
helping out. The quick transportation of relief workers and supplies
is another benefit of the interlocking global economy that did not
exist for such major past quakes as those in San Francisco in 1906 or
Tokyo in 1923.

Economically, Japan has been staggered. Honda, Toyota and other stocks
are down. Global oil prices dropped as a drop in Japanese demand was
anticipated. The prices of other commodities also may be affected.
Early reports were that five Japanese steel mills closed to assess
structural damage; according to Reuters, that may increase prices due
to shortages.

“The tremors from this will reverberate throughout the world economy
for months, if not years,” Griswold observed. “It will have a huge
impact on commodities. We prosper together, and feel each other’s
pain.”

Social media also are playing a role. People around the world watched
reports in real-time on TV and Internet sites. At 4:36 am Friday, we
got a phone call from the Tsunami Hotline, part of AlertOC, warning
that “some areas could experience dangerous waves and tidal surges
along the beaches. Stay out of the water.” This time it wasn’t too bad
for us. Next time the warning might save hundreds of lives along our
coast.

In Japan, although the temblor disrupted some networks, people in
Japan and elsewhere immediately were tweeting away on Twitter and
posting on Facebook, including photos and YouTube videos. Reported
KVTB.com in Boise, Idaho, “Late Thursday night, Twitter lit up with
people wondering if their friend, Iko Vannoy, a former Boise State
student who is now working in Japan, was OK.
“Iko responded very quickly, letting her friends know she was safe,
but it was one of the scariest moments of her life. ‘I thought I was
going to die! It was like watching a movie,’ Iko said via Twitter.”

What a relief to Iko’s friends; and a comfort to Iko that her friends
cared so much.

As relief efforts proceed, it’s worth emphasizing that free markets
and free trade were essential to lessening the damage done by the
earthquake and tsunami. Freedom just doesn’t bring prosperity; it
saves lives.

From: A. Papazian

Artsakh refutes Azeri lies on killing of the child

March 12, 2011 – 18:41 AMT 14:41 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

The Press services of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense of
NKR issued a joint statement condemning false accusations of
Azerbaijani side.

`The Azerbaijani official propaganda continues aggravating the
situation on the occasion of the Azerbaijani boy’s death in the
frontier village of Orta Karvend, intensively spreading false
accusations against the Karabakh party,’ the statement said.

`Careful investigation of the case can discover some facts testifying
to the fabricated accusations of official Baku. During the March 10
monitoring conducted by the OSCE Mission in the noted place, the
Karabakh party drew the attention of the monitoring group to the
following facts: The distance between the front positions of the NKR
Defense Army and the village of Orta Karvend makes 1400-1500 meters,
i.e. to hit a man with adjusted fire from a SVD sniper rifle is
impossible in this case; the relief of the noted section doesn’t allow
adjusted firing from the positions of the NKR Defense Army towards the
opponent, as the latter has height privileges; according to reliable
sources, for more accurate firing at the NKR Defense Army’s positions
from Orta Karvend, the Azerbaijani soldiers climb the houses’ roofs.
The very houses, in the yards of which `boys play’; in the frontier
villages, people usually settle in the middle or back, i.e. the safer
area of the settlement and not in its front section. According to the
Azerbaijani mass media information, everything is just the contrary in
Orta Karvend, and the yards, where ‘children play’, are, for some
reason, situated as close to the front line as possible; even if the
child was killed by firing, still it should be established who and
from what side fired. It isn’t excluded that Fariz Badalov could be a
victim of firing by the Azerbaijani pointsmen between the villages of
Orta Karvend and Shykhlar. It isn’t excluded either that the boy could
have perished as a result of careless handling of unexploded
ammunition, which often happens in the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict
zone, on both sides of the contact-line. If the shot was not fired
straightly at the target, but up on-the-mitre, so the bullet, shot
from a simple gun, could not fly so far. High calibre machineguns can
fire at such a distance. But, according to the Azerbaijani mass media
information, the child died on the way to the hospital. If the shot
had been fired from a high calibre gun, so it would have merely
smashed the child’s head.’

`Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani official propaganda doesn’t disdain
any methods, even cashing in on children’s life and death. The
Armenian parties are strangers to fascist methods used by Azerbaijan –
killing children, asleep men, and hostages, making subversives and
terrorists national heroes, and others.

Every time, after the Presidents’ meetings or before a visit of the
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen to the region, the Azerbaijani propaganda
machine increases the tension on the contact-line. Another example was
the March 10 death of 19-year-old soldier of the NKR Defense Army
Arthur Aghababian as a result of the firing from the Azerbaijani side.
The incident took place almost immediately after the OSCE monitoring
of the NKR and Azerbaijani armed forces’ contact-line. This is rough
violation of the agreements on confidence building measures achieved
on March 5 in Sochi as a result of the Armenian, Russian, and
Azerbaijani Presidents’ meeting. While, on the initiative of the
Armenian parties, the mediators once again offer drawing off snipers
from the front line, official Baku doesn’t only block this initiative,
but also intensifies the sniper war and with its provocative actions
reduces to zero the efforts of the international community on peaceful
settlement of the Karabakh conflict.’

`The international community must strictly condemn similar actions of
the Azerbaijani leadership and apply corresponding sanctions against
it,’ the statement concluded.

From: A. Papazian

Armenian Ambassador to Lebanon passes Yerevan Mayor’s letter to his
Beirut counterpart

March 12, 2011 – 17:49 AMT 13:49 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

Armenia-Lebanon cooperation in educational sector was discussed at the
meeting between the Ambassador of Armenia to Lebanon Ashot Kocharyan
with Higher Learning and National Education Minister Hassan Mneimneh.

The Armenian diplomat also met with Beirut Mayor Bilal Hamad to
discuss Yerevan-Beirut cooperation perspectives. The Ambassador passed
the letter of the Yerevan Mayor to Mr. Hamad.

On March 11, Kocharyan visited Haigazian University, where he met with
the university president Paul Haidostian, Armenian Foreign Ministry
press service reported.

From: A. Papazian

Victims of flood in Azerbaijan can no longer wait for promised compensation

March 12, 2011 – 18:05 AMT 14:05 GMT
PanARMENIAN.Net –

On Saturday March 12, over two hundred residents of Saatli region
blocked a road in the central part of the region demanding to
compensate the damage caused to them during a flood in the spring of
2010. Residents of the villages of Dehler, Musalem, and Abasbeyli
participated in the rally. They have not received compensation even
nine months later.

According to the order N197 of the Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers,
the victims of the flood were to receive compensation for damaged
farms and one-time financial assistance.

Police forces quickly unblocked the road. The head of the regional
center of Saatli Siragaddin Jabbarov arrived to the pace and offered
to continue the meeting in the village of Abasbeyli. In an hour he
meeting of the head of the region and the protesters resumed. He
promised to start paying one-time compensation – 300 AZN per person
and 250 manat per one hectare of land for spring agricultural
activities. Soon the commission will arrive to the region to determine
the damage to the farms and infrastructure.

This is the second action of protest in the region over the past 15
days. Residents of several villages of Sabirabad region held a rally
on February 24, and only after the rally they authorities started
paying compensation, and began restoration of infrastructure.

As a result of floods last spring in the Kura plain more than 100
thousand hectares and 20 thousand homes were flooded. The government
has allocated 300 million manat to eliminate the consequences of
floods, but the works were fulfilled only partially. The fate of the
allocated funds remains unclear, contact.az reported.

From: A. Papazian