Author: Badalian Vardan

Exploitation of Amulsar gold mine will not hind tourism development in Jermuk

October 05, 2013 | 14:05

YEREVAN. – The exploitation of Amulsar gold mine is not hindering
tourism development in the resort town of Jermuk, Mayor Vardan
Hovhannisyan said during the third forum of village communities.

`According to the submitted plan, development of the gold deposit will
not hurt the city. The research is underway. We have appealed to the
President with the request to keep the issue in spotlight. If the
field hinders Jermuk, I think it will not work,’ the Mayor said.

Amulsar deposit is the second largest gold deposit in Armenia after
Sotk. The Lydian International reported resource update of 2.5 million
ounces gold at its Amulsar project.

Unmanned flying devices to be produced in Armenia

11:30, 5 October, 2013

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 5, ARMENPRESS: The Armenian Instigate Company will
implement the production of unmanned flying devices in Armenia, in
particular, educopter, photocopter and agrocopter. This was reported
to Armenpress by the Chief Engineer of Instigate CJSC Vahagn
Poghosyan, stating that preliminary agreement on the devices supply
has been already achieved.

`One of the Danish companies, functioning in the field of production
of the unmanned devices, which cooperates with an American company,
does not manage to provide for the necessary production volumes and
has agreed with the Armenian Instigate to launch the production of the
unmanned devices in Armenia to provide for the necessary volumes of
the devices’, – informed Vahagn Poghosyan.

To the question – how much does one educopter cost – the Chief
Engineer of Instigate CJSC noted that the price for the device is
$5,000.

Instigate is an engineering company with hardware and software teams
headquartered in Yerevan, Armenia. Four R&D branches of the company
are located in different cities of Armenia.

The main partners and customers are in the USA and EU.

The main area of the expertise is system level design of electronic
systems, EDA specific software design and parallel programming. The
design services range from software design and quality assurance to
comprehensive application engineering with an emphasis on audio/video
coding and communication. The company provides design services in
development of massive parallel algorithms, system modeling and
simulation, hardware-software decomposition and co-design, SW
development and quality assurance and RTL design and verification.

Since 2009 Instigate has extended the range of its services with
software acceleration using General Purpose Graphical Processing Units
such as NVIDIA’s and ATI’s cards and using modern multi-CPU devices
with special optimizations for Non-Uniform-Memory-Architecture.

Along with the ordinary design services Instigate has developed
software libraries and tools, which were proven when being applied in
the company’s design services.

© 2009 ARMENPRESS.am

CivilNet, Armenia
Oct 4 2013

Timely, Comprehensive Newscasts on the Net Now

YEREVAN – CivilNet has just launched a daily English-language newscast
to provide a timely and comprehensive look at the stories its news
team is covering in-depth daily. Paul Chaderjian and Maria Titizian
report the digest and hope to use the forum as a way to summarize and
create interest in the pressing issues of the day in the republics of
Armenia and Karabakh and the region.

“The reaction has been fantastic,” says Titizian. “We produce the
report every weekday in time for our European and American audiences,
so that when Diasporans wake up, our digest is ready for them to
watch.”

Chaderjian, who anchored a similar newscast years ago on Armenia TV,
says as a diasporan interested in Armenia and the region, he has
always wanted to watch a news report like the one being produced now
by CivilNet.

Civilitas Director Salpi Ghazarian, who helped launch the ANC’s
Horizon TV in 1989, created CivilNet.

The latest episode of the digest may be found via this link:

Armenia’s councils of elders need to work more effectively – deputy minister

October 05, 2013 | 16:56

The institution of the council of elders needs to become more
effective in Armenia.

Vache Terteryan, First Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration,
announced the above-said at Saturday’s final press conference of the
third conference of the rural communities of Armenia.

`This conference was different from the previous ones because not
solely the leaders of rural communities, but also members of the
councils of elders were in attendance; they took part in the
discussions of all matters,’ Terteryan stated.

He added that the conference was very productive.

`The President and the Prime Minister of Armenia, [and] the regional
governors participated in the discussions; they became the
participants in a rather full agenda,’ Vache Terteryan noted.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

Matter of lending Armenian pastures to the Iranians is closed – Deputy Minister

October 05, 2013 | 17:54

The matter of lending Armenian pastures to the Iranians is closed,
Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration Vache Teretryan said.

`If you have followed the statements of the Ministry, you could see
that the matter had been closed and further discussions are not on the
agenda,’ Deputy Ministers told reporters in Jermuk.

The talks on lending Armenian pastures to the Iranian side were held
in 2012-13 and received much criticism in public and social media.
Some civic activists labeled the move as `treason.’

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

Armenian rights acivists slam pressures against opposition MP

15:46 – 05.10.13

Several civil society activists have voiced their criticism against
what they believe the Armenian authorities’ restrictions against the
opposition MP Zaruhi Postanjyan over a recent speech at the Council of
Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE)

In a joint address, a group of human rights activists, heads of
non-governmental organizations, journalists and lawyers condemn the
authorities’ tough stance on Postanjyan’s statement, considering it a
restriction of her right to free speech and free self-expression.

Following Serzh Sargsyan’s speech at the PACE plenary session,
Postanjyan, a lawmaker of the opposition Heritage party and a member
of Armenia’s delegation to the Assembly, asked the president to
comment on the rumors that he has gambled away 70 million at a
European casino.

Her move received a strong reaction by the governing circles which
considered it a personal insult against the president . The speaker of
Armenia’s National Assembly, Hovik Abrahamyan, said last week that he
intends to remove Postanjyan from the delegation for what he described
as a slanderous remark.

The Armenian civic activists find that by raising the question at the
Assembly, Postanjyan exercised her right to free speech. Citing
relevant provisions from the European Convention on Human Rights and
Armenia’s Constitution, they say that the opposition MP did not
disclose a state secret that could pose a national security threat to
Armenia as a democratic state.

`We consider any step aimed at restricting Postanjyan’s right to
speech and self-expression, and the individual threats and other
possible measures against her – including a final decision to exclude
her from the delegation -, unacceptable; we find that a persecution
against the opposition politician,’ reads the statement.

Condemning possible pressures against the opposition MP, the group
calls upon the authorities to take appropriate measures towards
ensuring the security of Postanjyan and family.

The document has been signed by President of the Helsinki Assembly’s
Vanadzor Office Avetik Ishkhanyan, Director of Transparency
International Anti-Corruption Center’s Armenian Office Varuzhan
Hoktanyan, President of the Women Resources Center NGO Lara Aharonyan
and others.

Armenian News – Tert.am

Armenian Parliament Speaker to attend the 129th IPU Assembly

15:16 05.10.2013

The delegation headed by Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly
Hovik Abrahamyan will leave for Geneva to participate in the 129th
Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union September 7-9.

Within the framework of the visit Speaker Hovuk Abrahamyan will have a
number of bilateral meetings with his counterparts.

The parliamentary delegation comprises MPs Karen Chshmarityan, Heghine
Bisharyan, Karine Achemyan and Martin Sargsyan.

NO ARMENIA-EU DEAL TO BE INKED IN VILNIUS: EU COMMISSIONER REP.

October 5, 2013 – 12:30 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – No Armenia-EU document is being readied to be
signed at a Vilnius summit, Haykakan Zhamanak daily said citing the
spokesperson of the EU Commissioner Stefan Fule.

“We’re trying to find routes for further cooperation with Armenia,
based on the existing achievements,” Peter Stano said.

In his address at a PACE fall session, President Serzh Sargsyan
expressed Armenia’s readiness to sign the Association Agreement with
the EU at a Vilnius-hosted Eastern Partnership summit. “Armenia
has always stressed that its policy backs combined, rather than
conflicting interests, a view shared by our European Commission
colleagues,” Sargsyan said, reiterating Armenia’s readiness to sign
the Association Agreement.

Earlier, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European
Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule has expressed hope that the summit in
Vilnius will ensure the irreversibility of the processes of political
association and economic integration of the Eastern Partnership
countries with the EU.

He further described the summit agenda, including signing of the
Association and free trade agreements with Ukraine, initialing of
similar deals with Moldova and Georgia, inking visa regime facilitation
and readmission deals with Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Armenia completed technical talks on a ‘deep and comprehensive
free-trade agreement’ (DCFTA) with the EU in July and it was set
to be signed at a summit with the EU in late November. In addition
to a free-trade deal, Armenia has been working towards the signing
of an association agreement with the EU, a framework agreement on
co-operation that is seen as a first step towards political integration
with the EU.

However, during a Sept 3 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin,
Armenian leader Sargsyan said Armenia is ready to join Customs Union,
with further plans to be involved in formation of the Eurasian Economic
Union. Mr. Putin supported the initiative, vowing procedural assistance
to Armenia.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt described Armenia’s intention as
a U-turn in relations with the European Union. “Seems as if Armenia
will break talks on free trade agreement with EU and integrate with
Russia instead,” he said.

Linas Linkevicius, the Foreign Minister of Lithuania, which holds
the rotating EU presidency, said Armenia “has blocked its chances of
signing a free trade deal with the European Union by choosing to join
the Russia-led union.” “We respect any choice of countries but they
cannot enter both organizations at the same time because of different
tariff requirements,” he said.

In a separate statement, Linkevicius and seven other ministers
from Nordic and Baltic countries warned against Russian pressure on
post-Soviet states. “Any economic threat or political pressure directed
against Eastern partners because of their European aspirations and
engagement with the EU is unacceptable,” they said.

The European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy,
Stefan Fule said the Customs Union membership is not compatible with
the DCFTAs which have been negotiated with Ukraine, the Republic of
Moldova, Georgia and Armenia.

“This is not because of ideological differences; this is not about
a clash of economic blocs, or a zero-sum game. This is due to legal
impossibilities: for instance, you cannot at the same time lower your
customs tariffs as per the DCFTA and increase them as a result of
the Customs Union membership,” he said during the European Parliament
plenary meeting in Strasbourg in a statement on “the pressure exercised
by Russia on countries of the Eastern Partnership.”

“It may certainly be possible for members of the Eastern Partnership
to increase their cooperation with the Customs Union, perhaps
as observers; and participation in a DCFTA is of course fully
compatible with our partners’ existing free trade agreements with
other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) states,” Fule said.

The Customs Union was formed in 2010 to include of Belarus, Kazakhstan,
and Russia; Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan later expressed willingness to
join the Union.

A QUIET WALK IN TEGHUT FOREST -PHOTOS

12:15, October 5, 2013

Vasken Brudian

Yesterday, on my second day of arrival to Armenia, I was fortunate
to have the experience of visiting the pristine, untouched, unharmed
section of Teghut Forest.

As environmental activists, we often focus on the destruction,
annihilation, the looting and the plunder of this magnificent
landscape; and rightfully so. We often speak of the embezzlement,
deception, health desecration and the misuse of the land for short-term
gain in our discussions. Yet, we often fail to remember to look or
present the forest in its unscathed, unharmed state and what we are
in the process of destroying.

Although we drove through the mine and we witnessed the devastation,
the destruction, and the activity related to excavating molybdenum,
I would like to present to you the forest in its inherent state,
in its utmost serenity and splendor.

Thank you to the villagers of Shenogh for taking us to this, almost
hidden, “yet” unaffected section of Teghut Forest. It would have
remained undiscovered for us for not to their hospitality.

KARABAKH PRESIDENT CONGRATULATES ON WORLD TEACHERS’ DAY

October 05, 2013 | 11:37

STEPANAKERT. – Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), or Artsakh, President
Bako Sahakyan on Saturday issued a message of congratulations on the
occasion of the World Teachers’ Day.

“Dear teachers:

“On behalf of the Artsakh Republic authorities and myself, I cordially
congratulate you on the professional holiday, the Teachers’ Day, a
truly public holiday which is traditionally celebrated in our country
as an expression of profound respect for the teacher’s profession.

“All of us remember our teachers, their lessons and precepts with
special warmth and reverence, which guide us during our entire life.

It is a hard and simultaneously an interesting work, very accountable
and very important for our country and people. The human personality
is formed and his future life path is outlined at school age, and
the teacher’s role in this process is indeed inestimable.

“With your wisdom and kindness, patience and self-devotion, you educate
and bring up the younger generation transferring your knowledge,
skills, and a part of your great soul. We are very much grateful to
you for this, dear teachers.

“Rest assured that your problems are always at the focus of the NKR
authorities, since education and science are among the key priorities
in the life of our state.

“Once again I congratulate all the teachers of Artsakh and wish peace,
great health and huge success in carrying out your patriotic mission,”
the NKR President’s message reads.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am