Author: Badalian Vardan

Zhoghovurd: Armenia ex-president is offended

January 18, 2014

YEREVAN. – The well-informed sources of Zhoghovurd daily conveyed very
interesting details about the possible reasons for the polemics
between Armenia’s PM Tigran Sargsyan and second President Robert
Kocharyan, the daily reports.

`Kocharyan told his close circles that he responded to Sargsyan for
but one reason: the current authorities are distorting the reality,
which is offensive.

`Kocharyan said that, during his tenure, [the] construction [business]
was at [its] peak [in Armenia]. In addition, he recalled that, at the
end of his tenure, the poverty [rate in the country] was 27.6 percent,
and the foreign debt, much lower: $1.4 billion.

`And [as per Kocharyan,] the incumbent authorities not only failed to
keep that number, but they further aggravated the situation by making
poverty reach 32.5 percent and the foreign debt, $4.5 billion.

`And, in this situation, criticizing Kocharyan severely offended the
second President,’ Zhoghovurd writes.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

Azerbaijani side violates ceasefire 150 times in passing week

January 18, 2014 | 14:35

STEPANAKERT. – The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire, at the
line of contact between the Karabakh-Azerbaijani opposing forces,
around 150 times in the passing week.

During this time, more than 800 shots were fired, Karabakh Defense
Ministry’s press service informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The Defense Army of Nagorno-Karabakh being committed to respect for
ceasefire regime continued the combat duty.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

REFORM REVOLT: RALLY AGAINST MANDATORY PENSION LAW HAS POLITICAL TONE FOLLOWING KOCHARYAN REMARKS

PENSIONS | 17.01.14 | 23:31

By Gohar Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

“Against Mandatory Pension Fund” civil movement is planning another
rally-march on Saturday, to once again raise public awareness on the
“anti-constitutional, anti-social provisions in the law”, demonstrate
their “readiness for a united, well-organized fight and determination
to the RA authorities, as well as demand from the Constitutional Court
(CC) to suspend and declare it anti-constitutional”.

According to the new pension plan to come into effect this month,
those born after January 1, 1974, that is, employed citizens of
Armenia under 40 years of age, will have to transfer five percent
of their salaries to their personal retirement savings fund – one
of their preference. The state will transfer as much every month,
meaning that the citizen will have the total monthly savings equal
to 10 percent of his/her salary, however the state payment will not
exceed 25,000 drams ($62). Opponents to the law insist they cannot
trust five percent of their salaries to pension funds, saying they
have no hope the money accumulated over the years would be returned
to them when the time comes. Besides, they believe the mandatory
component violates citizens’ rights and contradicts the Constitution.

The four oppositional factions — the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
Dashnaktsutyun (ARF), Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), Heritage and
the Armenian National Congress — turned to the Constitutional
Court in December with a similar motion to declare the new law
anti-constitutional and suspend the application of the law; the CC
has to make a respective decision by January 25.

However, state officials, among them the top leadership, including
the President and the Prime Minister, support the law and do not
intend postponing its application.

“It is understandable that there is also resistance and opposition. It
should not be taken too critically as any reform meets resistance.

Society, especially civil society, has to be as such. Any action,
any compulsion has to first of all be met with resistance, while the
authorities have to be better prepared to use that tool of compulsion,”
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said during his year-end meeting with
the press, adding that the bill has been drafted for ten years and
no better alternative has been found, hence this is the best possible
solution to the retirement pension issue.

Meanwhile, RA second president Robert Kocharyan, during whose term
the pension reform discussions were launched, but the government
then spoke categorically against it, said in an interview to his
non-official website that there is “a high probability of failure at
the cost of losing our citizens’ financial means”.

In general, the second president’s activated appearance has given
grounds to believe that the coming rally will also be of a political
nature, as the two factions opposing the pension reform – PAP and ARF –
are loyal to the second president.

ARMENIA SELLS GAS MONOPOLY STAKE TO GAZPROM

Business New Europe
Jan 17 2014

bne
January 17, 2014

Armenia has sold its 20% stake in monopoly gas operator ArmRosgasprom
to Gazprom following approval of the deal at a meeting on January 16.

The sale gives the Russian gas giant total control over the Armenian
company.

The deal had already been agreed between Armenian President Serzh
Sargsyan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at a meeting on
December 2, 2013, as Russia increases its influence in Armenia. The
government’s 20% stake in ArmRosgasprom will be sold to Gazprom,
which already holds 80% of the company, for $156m.

The purchase price will cover around half the $300m debt Armenia ran
up between 2011 and 2013, when Yerevan decided against passing on a
gas price increase to consumers ahead of elections. The 50% rise in
the cost of Russian gas had come in the run-up to presidential and
local elections in February and May of last year, ARKA reports.

However, the price rise was reversed in late 2013 after Armenia agreed
to join the Russian-led Customs Union.

In December, Armenia’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Armen
Movsisian effectively acknowledged that opposition accusations the
government had been keeping the price rise secret until after the
elections were correct. The government did not announce the increase
until after President Serzh Sargsyan was re-elected, and an 18%
price hike was only passed on to consumers in July.

By September, Yerevan had announced it would turn away from its road
to closer ties with the EU to join the Russian project instead. By
October, Russia cut 30% off the original price hike, to leave Armenia
paying $189 per 1,000 cubic metres. European customers pay around
$450-500.

The latest deal illustrates Armenia’s rapid move into the Russian
sphere of influence. An agreement giving Gazprom the sole right to
supply gas to the Armenian market until 2043 was also signed during
Putin’s meeting with Sargsyan.

The agreement was signed by Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller and Armenian
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Armen Movsisyan, reports Prime.

Gazprom said it will rebrand ArmRosgasprom as Gazprom Armenia.

INSTANBUL HOSTS CONFERENCE TO COMEMORATE HRANT DINK

January 17, 2014 – 21:14 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – A prominent sociologist gave a lecture on Friday,
Jan 17, in Istanbul in memory of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink since the anniversary of his assassination is around the corner,
Today’s Zaman reports.

The seventh Hrant Dink Human Rights and Freedom of Expression
Conference hosted Loic Wacquant at Bogazici University, and Dink’s
wife Rakel Dink presented him a plaque at the end of the event.

Dink emphasized in her short speech the importance of reaching the
truth after she criticized people who kill or steal in the name of God.

In her opening speech, Bogazici University President Gulay Barbarosoglu
talked about the history of the lectures, as she said that they are
ashamed because the forces behind the Hrant Dink murder have not been
brought to light.

The prominent French sociologist, Wacquant from the University of
California at Berkeley, lectured on urbanization, urban poverty and
the evolution of ghettos.

Referring to sociologist Max Weber’s statement that “The air of a city
makes you free,” Wacquant said that a city is a place of potential
freedom and cultural diversification.

Touching upon the resistance of people in cities, Wacquant talked
about Gezi and said that it is the educated middle class residents
that protested the demolishing of the park.

In his lecture, Wacquant mostly explained how ghettos developed
and disappeared in the Western world. The most important of them
was the Jewish ghetto in Venice. Describing the ghetto as a form of
integration, the professor said that there are four elements of a
ghetto: stigma, constraints, special confinement and institutional
parallelism.

Another important ghetto was the black ghetto in Chicago in the
first half of the 1900s according to him. However, after the 1950s,
ghettos died in the U.S., as blacks protested the containment. Yet,
as blacks moved to the cities, whites migrated to the suburbs, he said.

In the Turkish context, Wacquant talked about a transformation from
“gecekondu” (a squatters house) to “varoÅ~_” (a neighborhood where
nobody wants to live).

MEETING OF ARMENIAN AND AZERBAIJANI FMS PLANED FOR NEXT WEEK

January 17, 2014 | 12:39

The meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers is planned
for next week in Paris.

Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov will continue discussions on
the settlement of Karabakh conflict. The meeting will be attended by
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.

Earlier this week OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Didier Burkhalter met
with Co-Chairs Igor Popov, Jacques Faure and James Warlick.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI BECOMES HONORARY MEMBER OF ARMENIA’S COMPOSERS UNION

18:04, 17 January, 2014

YEREVAN, JANUARY 17, ARMENPRESS. The series of “Days of Krzysztof
Penderecki in Armenia” events devoted to the Polish prominent composer
and conductor was concluded by the display of “Paths of Labyrinth” film
which tells about life and work activity of Krzysztof Penderecki. All
the way Krzysztof Penderecki called “20th century Beethoven” passed
was introduced 87 -minute film made in 2013.

“It is a huge event that one of the greatest composers of our times
is in Armenia. A great festival was held. It is wonderful we were
able to listen to his colorful works of various genres it was an
invaluable event. A person as great as Penderecki should perform
with Philharmonic as our band can satisfy his level and we saw that
Philharmonic introduced itself extraordinarily in the eve,” Artistic
Director and General Conductor of the State Philharmonic Orchestra
of Armenia Eduard Topchyan stated it in a conversation with Armenpress.

The series of events entitled “Days of Krzysztof Penderecki in Armenia”
commenced solemnly in “Aram Khachaturian” concert hall with the joint
performance of State Youth Orchestra of Armenia and cellist Bartosz
Koziak on January 13.

Krzysztof Penderecki was born in DÄ~Ybica on 23 November, 1933. He
studied composition privately with Franciszek SkoÅ~Byszewski and
then (1955-8) with Artur Malawski and StanisÅ~Baw Wiechowicz at
the State Higher School of Music in Kraków, where he also taught,
being appointed its rector (i.e., president) in 1972 (in the 1980s
the School was renamed “Academy of Music). Penderecki’s career had
a very auspicious beginning. In 1959 he came suddenly to prominence
when three of his works won first prizes in a national competition
organized by the Polish Composers’ Union (he submitted them under
different pseudonyms). His reputation quickly spread abroad, notably
through perfomances of such works as Anaklasis (written for the 1960
Donaueschigen Festival) and Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. The
latter piece, as well as the Passion according to St. Luke of 1963-5,
found an unusually wide audience for contemporary works, and Penderecki
soon received important commissions from diverse organizations in
Europe and the USA. He has also appeared widely as a lecturer and in
1972 began to conduct his own compositions.

Penderecki has won numerous domestic and foreign prizes including
the First Class State Award (1968, 1983), the Polish Composers’
Union Prize (1970), the Herder Prize (1977), the Sibelius Prize
(1983), the Premio Lorenzo Magnifico (1985), the Israeli Karl Wolff
Foundation Prize (1987), a Grammy Award (1988), a Grawemeyer Award
(1992), and a UNESCO International Music Council Award (1993). He has
honorary doctorates from universities in Rochester, Bordeaux, Leuven,
Belgrade, Washington, Madrit, PoznaÅ~D, Warsaw and Glasgow. He is an
honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Musikaliska Academien in Stockholm,
Akademie der Kunste in Berlin, Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes
in Buenos Aires, Academie Internationale de Philosophie et de I’
Art in Bern, Academie Internationale des Sciences, Belles-lettres
et Arts in Bordeaux, and the Royal Academy of Music in Dublin. In
1990 he received the Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of
the Federal Republic of Germany, in 1993 the Order of Cultural Merit
(Monaco), and in 1994 an Austrian honorary distinction For Achievements
in Science and Arts. In 1993 he was decorated with the Commander’s
Cross with the star of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Penderecki’s teaching career developed in Germany, the U.S. and
Poland. He taught composition at the Volkwang Hochschule fur Music,
Essen (from 1966 to 1968); in 1973-78 he lectured at Yale University
in New Haven. In 1982-87 he was rector of the Academy of Music in
Kraków, in 1987-1990 he served as the artistic director of the Cracow
Philharmonic. Since his conductor’s debut with the London Symphony
Orchestra (1973), he has performed with prominent symphony orchestras
in the United States and Europe, and he is chief guest conductor
of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra in Hamburg. Apart from his
own works, his conducting repertoire covers the works of composers
from various epochs, with a preference for 19th-century and early
20th-century compositions. In 1997 he published a book entitled “The
Labyrinth of Time. Five Lectures at the End of the Century (Warsaw,
“Presspublica”). In 1996 the performance of his piece Seven Gates of
Jerusalem, commissioned by the city, commemorated the celebrations of
“Jerusalem – 3000 Years.” in Israel.

KARABAKH PRESIDENT CALLS NOT TO YIELD TO PROVOCATIONS

January 17, 2014 | 17:42

STEPANAKERT. – President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Bako
Sahakyan participated in a meeting of the Defense Army’s Military
Council convened to sum up the activities of 2013.

In his speech, president Sahakyan touched upon the process of army
building, emphasized the achievements and existing problems.

Bako Sahakyan noted that the army building has been and will remain
among the key directions of the state building.

Taking about the current situation in the borderline with Azerbaijan,
President Sahakyan noted that Baku continued its policy of grossly
violating the ceasefire regime, threatening Artsakh and Armenia,
breaking fundamental norms and principles of the international law.

He said it is necessary to be vigilant, to keep the initiative in
our hands, at the same time not yielding to provocations.

President instructed defense minister and the supreme command staff
of the army to find solutions to the existing problems.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

MOTOR PROTEST ACTIVISTS REPORT ‘POLICE PRESSURE’

HUMAN RIGHTS | 17.01.14 | 13:08

Photolure

A local pressure group opposing the controversial pension reform
has claimed that police have been visiting the homes of or making
phone calls to a number of participants in yesterday’s action with
an apparent aim of putting pressure on them.

Dozens of motorists on their cars drove in circles around the main
square in the Armenian capital Yerevan Thursday morning in order to
draw attention, by creating traffic congestion, to a bigger public
rally scheduled for Saturday. This upcoming rally is to be held as part
of the campaign against the enactment of a controversial law under
which all workers in Armenia aged below 40 must pay five percent of
their salaries to privately owned pension funds in addition to social
security taxes paid by their employers.

The participants of Thursday’s “automobile protest” kept Yerevan’s
Republic Square, where the Armenian government is located, clogged
in traffic for an hour and a half, informing passers-by through
loudspeakers about the January 18 event.

Some of the police officers, who unsuccessfully tried to regulate the
traffic in the area, were noticed to have been writing down in their
notebooks the numbers of the license plates of the cars participating
in the action. The drivers, meanwhile, insisted that they did not
violate any of the traffic rules even if they were responsible for the
traffic jam and, therefore, could not be penalized for their actions.

Still on Thursday the Police’s press service explained that the
policemen on duty in the area were simply doing their job.

The activists who left messages on the Facebook account of the “I’m
Against” group said the police officers who visited or called them
inquired about other road incidents not related to the January 16
protest, but added that they were sure they were targeted purposefully
for taking part in the event.

‘DANGER OF KOCHARIAN COMEBACK IS OCCASION FOR AUTHORITIES’ UNIFICATION’

Friday,
January
17

The interview of Robert Kocharian is an attempt to distract the
public’s attention from the social problems which are worsening in
Armenia day by day, political scientist Andrias Ghukasian said at a
meeting with reporters today.

In his words, the danger of Robert Kocharian’s comeback is becoming
an occasion for the authorities to unite and tighten the internal
discipline.

“The key figures of the third republic are sponsors or participants
of organized crime. They are liked to each other and are always able
to reach joint decisions,” A. Ghukasian said.

TODAY, 15:39

Aysor.am