Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

MOVEMENT AGAINST FUNDED PENSIONS HOLDING PROTEST MARCH IN YEREVAN – VIDEO/PICTURES

20:06 â~@¢ 18.04.14

Members of the movement against funded pensions are marching up toward
the Armenian presidential residence.

They want to present their demand that President Serzh Sargsyan
“properly perform his duties envisaged by the Constitution.”

Movement member David Manukyan stated that several hundred more people
will join the march.

He also called on the police to act within the law.

The movement members are now in front of the presidential residence,
chanting ‘We are against!’ and ‘No plunder!’

Armenian Premier Hovik Abrahamyan met up with the activists.

He told them the government will try to resolve any problems raised
by the activists.

“I think we should not wait until September 30. The first step has
been made,” the premier said.

From: Baghdasarian

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARIAN SEES NO OBSTACLES TO SIGNING THE POLITICAL COMPONENT OF THE ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT WITH ARMENIA

by Ashot Safaryan

Friday, April 18, 13:38

“We will be very happy if Armenia refuses to join the Customs Union,”
Frank Engel, a Member of the European Parliament and of the European
People’s Party (EPP) in the European Parliament, told reporters,
in Yerevan, Friday.

According to the European parliamentarian, the EU will continue its
cooperation with Armenia. Armenia has a big number of friends in
the European Parliament and the existing ties are a good basis for
further cooperation, Engel said.

Asked why the EU refused to sign the political component of the
Association Agreement with Armenia, but later signed a relevant
agreement with Ukraine, Engel said that the process requires a
gradual approach.

According to the European parliamentarians, the positions of the all
the parties must be taken into account.

“As far as I know, there are no obstacles to signing the political
part of the Agreement,” he said. However, Engel added, the EU has
faced a complicate situation following Armenia’s decision to access
the Customs Union.

To recall, on September 3, 2013 in Moscow the Presidents Serzh Sargsyan
and Vladimir Putin confirmed the aim of the Republic of Armenia
and the Russian Federation in the direction of further development
of economic integration processes in the Eurasian territory. Since
2010 Yerevan had actively held negotiations on Association Agreement/
Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the European Union. The
AA/DCFTA was to have been initialed during the Eastern Partnership
Summit in Vilnius.

From: Baghdasarian

NEW APARTMENTS IN KOVSAKAN

Thursday, 17 April 2014 09:53

For resolving the dwelling issue in the Kashatagh region, construction
materials are provided to the people, houses are built for large
families and those of deceased soldiers. Recently, two multi-apartment
buildings have been built in the town of Kovsakan.

The first six-apartment building was put into operation last year,
and on April 10, apartments were provided to 12 families, which
sheltered in temporary lodgings.

The ceremony of key handing was also attended by NKR President Bako
Sahakyan. new tricolor flags around the country and the government
to Tatul Kovsakan hero’s welcome secondary school students to the
city’s residents and the neighboring communities of speech greeted
by student participants, and folk dances were performed Berdzor arts
and sports school folk song and dance ensemble Kovsakan branch Tatul
dancers. The authorities of the state and region were met at the
new building by pupils of the Tatul Krpeyan secondary school with
tricolor flags. Also, inhabitants of the town and representatives of
the neighboring communities were present at the event. The attendees
were welcomed by the pupils, then dancers of Tatul folk song and dance
ensemble of the Kovsakan branch of the Berdzor arts and sports school
performed folk dances.

Congratulating the owners of the apartments, head of the Kashatagh
region administration Suren Khachatryan noted the humanitarian
organizations and benefactors, which funded the construction of the
building. Expressing is gratitude to them on behalf of the inhabitants,
the administration head noted that unity strengthens Kovsakan and
the neighboring settlements.

Doctor of the Kovsakan hospital, Syrian Armenian Mushegh Atoyan
congratulated his fellow citizens on getting the apartments, expressing
his gratitude to the authorities for their cordial reception of the
Syrian Armenians and providing them with jobs and dwelling.

Director of Tufenkyan Foundation Maro Matossian noted in her speech
that since 1996 she had implemented programs in the Kashatagh
region. “I didn’t believe that years later such progress would be
achieved and I didn’t think that our Diaspora compatriots would
settle here. We should act jointly to achieve progress”, concluded
Maro Matossian who has completed her mission in Artsakh.

Noting the strategic significance of the region, President Sahakyan
appreciated its inhabitants’ service before the homeland, adding
that the construction of the regional hospital had already been
completed and soon it would be equipped. The construction of the
kindergarten is also about to be finished. Later, programs on the
region’s prosperity will be realized. The keys for apartments 1 and
2 were handed by President Sahakyan. Keys were also handed by state
and regional officials. Gifts were handed to two families. The red
ribbon was cut by the children. The head of state, Government and
Parliament members, as well as residents entered the new apartments,
congratulated their owners and wished them the best.

Then, the delegation moved to the new hospital, where the state
authorities were met by the medical staff. President Sahakyan
familiarized with the construction works, the hospital’s problems,
talked to its executive director and doctors. The President instructed
the minister of health to ensure the hospitals equipment in the nearest
days. The next site was the neighboring building of the kindergarten,
where the construction works are still underway. The NKR President
instructed the constructors and the minister of urban development to
finish the works in time and with high quality.

Construction of dwelling buildings in the region’s Aghavno and
Ishkhanadzor communities is also underway.

Zohrab YRKOYAN

Town of Berdzor

From: Baghdasarian

WOMAN WHO RELEASED MOUSE OUTSIDE GOVERNMENT BUILDING FINED 20,000 AMD

04.18.2014 13:20 epress.am

A large number of police officers at around 7:30 pm on Thursday
followed Karabakh War veteran Susanna Margaryan to her home, with the
intention of detaining her, after she brought a cat and mouse to a
protest outside the government building. In a phone call to Epress.am,
Margaryan said she is not preparing to open the door and is speaking
to the police through the window of her first-floor apartment.

She said that speaking with her was Deputy Chief of Criminal Cases at
Kentron Police Division Armen Aydinyan, to whom she said she would
go to the police station the next day at noon. “Aydinyan in no way
is accepting my remarks, constantly saying we’ll take you now and
release you in 12 minutes. But I’m not going to go, if they don’t
believe my words. Why should I believe them?” she said.

The number of officers increased around 9 pm, and joining them was
Kentron Police Chief Vardan Gevorgyan, who also demanded she open the
door. At around 10 pm, Margaryan agreed to go to the police station,
but only after staff of the Armenian Human Rights Defender’s office
had arrived on the scene.

The latest update was provided by Margaryan at 11:58 pm, when she left
the police station after she was slapped with an administrative fine
of 20,000 AMD (about $48 USD). She said police officers explained to
her that she was fined for “misuse of a restricted area”.

From: Baghdasarian

TURKISH PM ERDOGAN: BIGGEST LOSER IN SYRIA CHEMICAL “ATTACKS” HOAX

BY STAFF
– POSTED ON APRIL 17, 2014

By APPO JABARIAN

Obama’s sudden climb-down in late August-early September 2013 on
his threatened military strike against Syria was in part forced on
him by a chemical analysis of samples of the sarin used in Ghouta,
which showed that its signature did not match that of the stockpiles
held by the Assad regime.

Now that the so-called ‘Chemical attacks in Damascus by Syrian
Government,’ hasn’t yielded the ‘stated objective’ – U.S. airstrike
against Syria, the warmonger neo-cons and pseudo-progressives are
pushing for “Humanitarian Interventionism,” giving the embattled
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan an 11th hour glimmer of hope to save
face. In recent years PM Erdogan emerged as the biggest stakeholder
in toppling the Syrian government.

By late 2012 the US had assessed that the rebels were losing the civil
war, and started to downgrade their involvement in the ‘rat line’.

That left Turkey’s Erdogan the main loser and the notion became the
consensus among such reputable independent Western journalists like
Pulitzer prize-winning writer Seymour Hersh who was credited for
having exposed US Government lies on Syrian Sarin chemical attacks.

“The US involvement in the rat line ended unhappily when its consulate
was stormed by Libyan militiamen. The US diplomatic presence in
Benghazi had been dwarfed by that of the CIA and, when US personnel
were airlifted out of the city in the aftermath of the attack,
only seven were reportedly from the State Department and 23 were
CIA officers. The disaster in Benghazi, which soon ballooned into
a political battle between Republicans and Democrats in Washington,
severely loosened US control of what arms were going to which rebel
movements in Syria. This happened at the moment when Assad’s forces
were starting to gain the upper hand, wrote Patrick Cockburn in an
April 13 article in The Independent.

“The US’s Secretary of State John Kerry and its UN ambassador,
Samantha Power have been pushing for more assistance to be given to
the Syrian rebels. This is despite strong evidence that the Syrian
armed opposition is, more than ever, dominated by jihadist fighters
similar in their beliefs and methods to al-Qa’ida. The recent attack
by rebel forces around Lattakia, northern Syria, which initially
had a measure of success, was led by Chechen and Moroccan jihadis,”
revealed Cockburn. Also according to eyewitnesses in Turkish-invaded
Kessab, many of the invaders were speaking Turkish.

He further noted that America has done its best to keep secret its
role in supplying the Syrian armed opposition, operating through
proxies and front companies. It is this which makes Seymour Hersh’s
article “The Red Line and The Rat Line: Obama, Erdogan and the
Syrian rebels” published last week in the London Review of Books,
so interesting. Attention has focused on whether the Syrian jihadist
group, al-Qa’ida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, aided by Turkish intelligence,
could have been behind the sarin gas attacks in Damascus last 21
August, in an attempt to provoke the US into full-scale military
intervention to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

Critics vehemently respond that all the evidence points to the Syrian
government launching the chemical attack and that even with Turkish
assistance, Jabhat al-Nusra did not have the capacity to use sarin.

“We now know it was a covert action planned by [Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s people to push Obama over the red line,”
a former senior US intelligence officer was quoted as saying.

In an April 15 scathing news analysis in MintPress News titled “The
Failed Pretext For War: Seymour Hersh, Eliot Higgins, MIT Rocket
Scientists On Sarin Gas Attack,” Carmen Russell-Sluchansky highlighted
“The Turkish connection” citing “Hersh’s initial assertion that
neighboring Turkey has played a role in the Syrian civil war by
supporting the al-Nusra rebels is known to those who are watching
the events there. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan started
providing significant material support to the Muslim Brotherhood in
Syria — which later merged with al-Nusra — in the early stages of the
Syrian Civil War, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle
East. Political analysts view this as Erdogan’s attempt to re-assert
Turkey’s influence in the region as it did during the Ottoman Empire.”

Furthermore, according to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency documents
cited by Hersh, “Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators were
attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms,
likely for the anticipated large scale production efforts in Syria.”

Among other things the Hersh articles point to the fact that a senior
US intelligence officer strongly believed that it did. The fact that
“it became publicly known is already damaging Turkey.”

Cockburn highlighted the US intelligence community’s deep suspicions on
“Erdogan’s actions in Syria” articulating the common knowledge that it
“may also be starting to strike home in the US and Europe that aid
to the armed rebellion in Syria means destabilizing Iraq.”

“A problem here is that the secular moderate faction of committed
Syrian opposition fighters does not really exist. … It is curious
that the US military has been so much quicker to learn the lessons of
Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya than civilians like Kerry and Power. The
killing of Ambassador Stevens shows what happens when the US gets
even peripherally involved in a violent, messy crisis like Syria
where it does not control many of the players or much of the field,”
concluded Cockburn.

In a mid-April article titled “Turkey’s War Against Syria,” Lionel
Reynolds ofOPEDnews.com asked: “Why does the Turkish regime appear
to be doing everything in its power to help the war against the
Ba’athist regime? Turkish-Syrian relations in the last century were
strained by a number of local and regional issues. These included the
Turkish annexation of Hatay from the French mandate of Syria in 1938,
Turkish dam building projects in South Eastern Turkey, and Syrian
protection for PKK militants. … Turkey seemed to be re-balancing
away from the traditional Kemalist agenda towards a more independent
neo-Ottoman engagement with its neighbors.”

Mr. Reynolds underlined: “Certainly, Turkey’s importance to NATO has
declined since the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War,
it was critical as the southern flank of the NATO encirclement of
the Eastern Bloc. … With the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe,
Turkey’s role has diminished. It is now just one of three NATO members
on the Black Sea. The other two, Bulgaria and Romania, host the US
Joint Task Force East program, which includes a permanent US military
presence and on-going joint training exercises. Turkey opposed both
this venture as well as a plan to expand Operation Active Endeavour
into the Black Sea. The AKP has also been at pains to point out that
Turkish participation in NATO operations in Iraq and Afghanistan does
not include combat troops. Added to all this, relations between Turkey
and Israel are currently at an all-time low. Turkey was the first
Muslim country to recognize the State of Israel, but under the AKP
regime events such as the 2009/9 Gaza war, the 2010 Gaza Flotilla raid,
and alleged Turkish involvement in the exposure of Israeli agents in
Iran in 2013, have significantly soured relations. Alongside this there
is greater Turkish openness to Russia – a significant geopolitical
opponent of the Euro-Atlanticist bloc. Turkey is a Dialogue Partner
of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization and has signed numerous
economic and visa-free travel agreements with Russia.

Turkey’s major trading partner is now the EU, but at the same time that
the Turkish regime is seeking full EU membership it is also carving out
an increasingly independent role in regional and global affairs, with
a particular interest in the nations of the former Ottoman Empire.”

But the Arab nations of former Ottoman Empire are no fools.

Interestingly, when a wave of public hangings in Lebanon and Syria
was initiated by Ottoman Turkey in 1910’s, the very first Syrian
and Lebanese leaders were Muslim Sunni. Generation after generation,
many Sunni Muslim tribes and families in Lebanon and Syria remember
Turkish brand of ‘brotherhood’ and they’re wary Turkey playing ‘big
brother’ under an Erdogan with Ottoman tendencies.

Besides the impending Turkish isolation, Ankara also seems to grapple
with Turkey’s internal sectarian problems that dwarf those of the
entire Middle East region. While Turkey misrepresents its population
to be 97% Turkic, the reality is that out of a population of nearly
80 million, around 25-28 million are Kurds, 19 million Alevis
(Alawites?), 5 million Arabs, 3-5 million hidden Greeks, 2-3 million
hidden Armenians, about 3-4 million foreign refugees (Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistanis, Chechens, etc.) collectively accounting
for well over 60 million non-Turks. Even many of the citizens of
what is now called Turkey discover their non-Turkic ancestry on a
daily basis.

As for the Turkish state’s current border, it could prove to be far
more porous than any of its neighbors, including Syria.

A stalemate in Syrian civil war can be detrimental to Turkey’s
territorial integrity. So for now, the absence of a misguided U.S.

military operation against Arab Republic of Syria makes Turkish PM
Erdogan the biggest loser in Syria ‘Chemical Attacks’ Hoax.

From: Baghdasarian

AROUTIOUNIAN: SALMON, NOT PINK

Yale Daily News
April 17 2014

Johnny Come Lately
By John Aroutiounian, Staff Columnist

Two winters ago, I stood on the beach in a remote part of western
Costa Rica, after having somehow managed to convince my poor parents —
all they wanted was one relaxing week to shake off the exhaustion of
their 8-to-8 hospital work schedules — to forsake a less adventurous
vacation and rent a little bungalow on the edge of a tiny coastal
village.

If you were a local resident (or even a tourist, for that matter), the
sight of this guy standing on the beach would have seemed bizarrely out
of place. Clad in seersucker shorts and a polo from a Vineyard Vines
sale, I looked out at the shimmering bay as the obvious question hit:
“Who are you?”

The answer, in that moment of handicapping self-consciousness only
possible in a setting vastly different from what you’re used to,
wasn’t obvious then and it isn’t now. I wasn’t the extremely awkward,
slightly foreign, vested elementary school kid who would sprint home
after school. Nor was I the middle-schooler in Kentucky who came from
New York and started to pick up, slowly, all the social cues. But,
now a sophomore at Yale, I also knew that wearing a salmon (not pink)
polo and seersucker shorts didn’t make me an East Coast yuppie on the
inside any more than it made that girl I’d pass on Old Campus every
day (wearing some variant of blue scales and red feathers) Lady Gaga.

Go ahead, psychoanalyze. It’s not a hard case. After growing up in
an Armenian immigrant household where every day felt like a climb
for everyone involved, you say, you probably wanted validation, and
turned to the clothing of the WASP elect (even though this has become
so cliche that the WASP elect are now scrambling to diversify their
wardrobes). Or, perhaps, you wanted to stand out when you went home,
wearing “I go to Yale” because it was too obnoxious to say it aloud.

Or, you just liked pink.

All these explanations are probably somewhat true. Yale is full of
middle and upper middle class kids who resemble young, fit, hungry
dogs: They’ve tasted meat for the first time, and their eyes have a
crazed intensity about them. Go to the next J.P. Morgan information
session, or stop by the News, if you really don’t know what I’m talking
about (or, for that matter, read through Yale College Council election
histories since time immemorial).

But as these questions of success and identity clash, weird things
start to happen – and the effects certainly aren’t limited to any
class. People start to become their “hyper-selves,” and soon it feels
like campus is drowning under the influence of its own individuality.

People become all kinds of archetypes: the bubbly (often wealthy) guy
with the great hair in all the photos, the Yale Political Union hack,
the YCC bureaucrat, the radical activist, the conservative crusader,
the Gaga, the jock. You could go on. As colleges like Yale become ever
more diverse and international, these archetypes take on all sorts of
new variations, but the fundamentals stay relatively constant. None
of these categories are bad in themselves (debatable, I know), but
they all present the possibility of their own pink polo moments.

When these moments happen, if personal experience is any guide,
another hard question can sometimes present itself: Which is the
bigger joke — that my self has been narrowed into this specific
identity that only represents a small part of who I actually am,
or that I’ll have to pretend to be the same person I was before I left?

Look, some people don’t end up asking themselves these questions. Some
feel like their developed identities represent them very well, and
that’s fine. I remember my personal surprise at seeing how comfortable
a group of students I was on a summer trip with felt in their suede
shoes, pants and jewelry. It wasn’t showy masquerading as understated,
it was just understated. Ostentatiousness in America really is,
more often than not, insecurity or class-consciousness in disguise.

Everyone has heard the cliche that you should be yourself, because
everyone else is taken. But what do you do when you’re already taken?

Everywhere you look, personal lives are individualized and planned:
parenthood, relationships, even relaxation. This makes the urge to
distinguish yourself on established, tangible terms very strong, and
it suggests something deeply wrong with American university life. It
leads to inadvertent close-mindedness, and it phases out a deeper
connection to intangibles.

John Aroutiounian is a junior in Jonathan Edwards College. His
column runs on alternate Wednesdays. Contact him at
[email protected].

From: Baghdasarian

NINETY-NINE YEARS OF DENIAL

The Bristol Press, CT
April 17 2014

By HARRY N. MAZADOORIAN

April 24, 2014 will mark the 99th anniversary of one of the most
ruthless chapters in the history of civilization, the Armenian Genocide
of 1915 perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, under cover of the unfolding
First World War. Beginning on that date, some one and a half million
men, women and children were barbarically murdered, sent on death
marches or deliberately starved in full view of the entire world.

Besides the enormity and scope of the savagery itself, the most
amazing thing about the genocide is that the successor government
continues to deny that it took place. This, despite the outrage
expressed at the time by virtually all of the civilized world, the
ongoing contemporaneous reporting of the killings by unimpeachable
sources such as the New York Times, and eyewitness accounts submitted
by United States statesmen such as the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire Henry Morgenthau and U.S. Consul Leslie Davis. Moreover, there
exist mountains of undisputed photographic evidence of the savagery as
well as a large and credible corps of international genocide scholars
attesting to the first genocide of the 20th century. So great was the
sympathy and outrage that a relief effort of unparalleled proportions
was undertaken in the United States and elsewhere by a wide spectrum
of people from all walks of life. The names of Americans providing
humanitarian relief and expressing support for the victims ranged
from a virtual who’s who of American politics, arts, academia and
philanthropy to ordinary citizens, all outraged by the atrocities.

The ensuing decades, however, saw a softening of the outrage. While the
events themselves continued to evoke humanitarian indignation, a sense
of resignation, sometimes even drifting into indifference, gradually
set in. The United States was forced to focus on ever-changing hot
spots around the world, not the least of which was the turbulent
middle east. The government of Turkey established itself as a needed
American ally in the shifting alliances in that part of the world:
it loudly protested any thought of U.S. recognition of the genocide.

Eventually, despite the early American condemnation of the genocide and
its perpetrators, the United States retreated from its resolve. As
time passed, it became a problem “from long ago.” The danger of
offending a unique ally became a risk too high.

And, after all, what good would recognition do? some asked.

It is incredible that that question could even be asked. Subsequent
history and world events demonstrated that forgetting events so
horrific would only embolden those bent on repeating outrageous
conduct in the future. Indeed, the first genocide of the twentieth
century was by no means the last. The Holocaust can only be described
as unimaginable in its scope and devastation. Cambodia, Rwanda … the
list goes on and on.

Even now, credible news comes of vicious attacks of Armenian
concentrations across the Turkish border in Kessab, Syria, which
several U.S. members of Congress condemned and referred to as “far
too reminiscent of the early days of the Armenian genocide.”

We have all read that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed
to repeat it.” But even worse, those who fail to learn and speak out
against past ignominies are actually encouraging future oppression.

Has 99 years taught us nothing? Can’t governments see that silence
will only be interpreted as indifference? Or worse yet, condoning
what went before. If ever there were a moral imperative, this is it.

The United States Congress has timidly turned away from numerous
efforts to pass a symbolic resolution to recognize the genocide over
the past several years. Many rationales have been offered for this
failure, ranging from fear of offending a needed ally to the fact
that it was long ago and could not do any good.

But glimmers of hope persist. Recently, the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee approved S. Resolution 410 recognizing the genocide. While
passage by both houses continues to be an uphill battle, it is a
battle which must be pursued.

As the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide approaches, the
devastating events of those years must be recognized for what they
were — not only to honor the memory of the million and one half who
perished but also to keep safe those throughout the world who are
and will be in danger of persecution in the future. While it was a
long time ago and nearly annihilated a sometimes little-known people,
it is of monumental significance to the world and all who care for
freedom and treasure human rights.

The silence has persisted for 99 years. It cannot be allowed to
continue for 100 years.

From: Baghdasarian

THE TWO EUS RACE TO THE FINISH IN THE CAUCASUS

EurasiaNet.org
April 17 2014

April 17, 2014 – 10:33am, by Giorgi Lomsadze

Armenia may now sign on to the Moscow-led Eurasian Union by the end
of April, roughly a month before neighboring Georgia is slated to
enter a free-trade and political pact with the European Union. The
signings of both agreements have been expedited as the competition
for the South Caucasus picks up speed between Russia and Europe.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan is scheduled to travel to Belarus
on April 29 for a meeting of the council of the Eurasian Union,
an economic bloc roughly modeled by Moscow after (and against)
the European Union. Armenian officials say that Sargsyan will sign
an agreement in Minsk on Armenia’s joining the Customs Union, the
flagship project of the Eurasian Union meant to create a shared
economic space for Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and, Moscow hopes,
more ex-Soviet states.

The new sign-on date is not a huge difference from the earlier deadline
of May, but, apparently, as East-West ties deteriorate over Ukraine,
someone feels the need to pick up the pace.

Wary of Ukraine-style pressure from Russia, the EU chiefs have been
trying to fast-forward their plans with Georgia and Moldova. Jose
Manuel Borroso, the president of the European Commission, the executive
body of the EU, is expected in Tbilisi in June to sign an association
agreement, which includes a free trade deal, with Georgia.

Armenia chose the Eurasian Union over a closer association with the
European Union, but Georgia has refused to have anything to do with
this second “EU,” which it sees as a plot to bring the Soviet Union
back into business.

Their respective EU choices — European or Eurasian — are likely
to place Georgia and Armenia in an awkward place, though. Accession
to competing economic projects is likely to complicate trade between
the neighbors.

Armenia will have to take on the shared export and import tariffs of
the Custom Union, though Yerevan is negotiating exemptions.

Free trade with the EU does not impose new trade duties on Georgia,
but the country will need to comply with the EU’s production-safety
regulations, which are expected to result in higher prices on
Georgian goods.

The third South-Caucasus country, Azerbaijan, has opted to stay out
of this EU rivalry. Unlike its natural resources-poor neighbors,
Azerbaijan does not feel the need to align itself with any club to
improve its economy. Oil and gas sales already are doing the trick.

From: Baghdasarian

SYRIA CONFLICT: ‘WE WILL BE MARTYRS’ SAY REBEL FIGHTERS FROM INSIDE THE BESIEGED CITY OF HOMS

As the final battle for the crucible of the Syrian revolution looms,
Fernande van Tets talks to those who are vowing no surrender

FERNANDE VAN TETS

Thursday 17 April 2014

The Syrian regime is on the verge of winning back the city of
Homs – known as the capital of the revolution for its role in the
three-year-old uprising.

The Syrian army began a large scale military campaign on Monday to
retake the last four neighbourhoods in opposition hands. Those inside
face a stark choice between surrender to the regime or fighting till
death. “Life is disastrous in every meaning of the word,” says one
activist inside the Old City.

Following a siege of almost two years, there are less than a thousand
people remaining in the area. The majority are fighters, but there
are several families and two dozen Christians who refused to leave
during a UN orchestrated evacuation in February.

Mortars, shelling and aerial bombardments currently pound the remaining
residents. There is little to stay for; the buildings are burned out
carcasses and there is no food or drinking water. “My last meal was
48 hours ago, and it consisted of grass unfit for cattle to eat” said
Hasan Abu Zain, an activist. The cattle has long been eaten, as have
locusts, pet turtles and cats. Drinking water is found in stagnant old
wells or contaminated with sewage. Morale is low, even before renewed
offensive people were pondering whether to leave the enclave. Tunnels,
previously used to smuggle food, are no longer possible as they have
been sealed off. The only way out is to surrender.

Unable to bear it any longer, three hundred people, mostly rebels
and draft evaders, left the Old City two weeks ago. Another 50 people
surrendered today, according to the governor’s office, who estimate
another 5-600 fighters remain. Between 10 and 15 people have been
leaving daily, in exchange for relinquishing their weapons according
to the governor, Talal al Barazi.

The men turn themselves in at the Al-Andalus school, where they are
subsequently held to investigate their involvement in fighting. The
school also holds 100 young men who left the besieged old city during
the evacuation in February. The United Nations halted that evacuation,
in which 1,400 primarily women, elderly and children left the old City,
due to concerns about the fate of the arrested men.

Negotiations to peacefully end the situation in Old Homs have failed.

“It is a matter of deep regret that negotiations were brutally stopped
and violence is now rife again when a comprehensive agreement seemed
close at hand,” Lakhdar Brahimi, the joint UN-Arab League Special
Envoy said in a statement, calling the city “a theatre of death and
destruction”.

There are some who will not leave, no matter what. “It’s impossible
for anybody to go out,” insists Abu Jarrah, a fighter who vowed to
fight till the end. “If we retreat the regime will slaughter us, and
all of the people in Homs know this,” he said. Although he denied
reports of fighters wearing suicide belts, he said they would be
ready to die. “God willing, we will fight until the last drop of
blood and we will be martyrs.” The opposition National Council has
warned of a “potential massacre” if government troops enter the
rebel-held district.

As the regime consolidates its territory in central Syria in the run
up to anticipated elections in June, it is being attacked in other
areas of the country. The northern coastal strip near Latakia, the
homeland of President Bashar al Assad, has come under attack recently,
most notably the Armenian town of Kassab. The city of Aleppo, at a
stalemate with rebel areas facing heavy barrel bombardments for months,
has also seen a new, coordinated push by rebels on the Western part
of the city, held by the regime.

From: Baghdasarian

ANTI-GOVERNMENT DEMONSTRATORS BROUGHT LIVE CAT AND MOUSE TO PROTEST

04.17.2014 14:20 epress.am

Karabakh War veteran Susanna Margaryan today released a cat and mouse
out of a box she brought to a demonstration outside the government
building (where a regular cabinet meeting was taking place) as a
reference to newly appointed Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan (who is
known by the nickname “mouse”).

Other demonstrators began to whistle and clap. Afraid of all the noise,
the cat crouched down, while the mouse scurried toward the building
steps, where police were blocking the entrance.

“He’s going to a meeting,” said the war veteran, while others added,
“This is what we will do to every official who flees from the people.”

For several minutes, the cat and mouse ran around outside the
government building, and both demonstrators and journalists followed
their moves with interest.

Later, one of the demonstrators removed the mouse from the steps.

From: Baghdasarian