Author: Boshkezenian Garik

AZERI SOLDIER FALLS IN FRONTLINE SHOOTING

AzerNews Weekly
Nov 19 2008
Azerbaijan

An Azerbaijani soldier died after killing two Armenian servicemen,
the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry spokesman, Eldar Sabiroghlu, has said.

According to Sabiroghlu, Orkhan Shamilov was killed following another
ceasefire violation by Armenian troops close to Azerbaijan`s Fuzuli
district on Sunday.

"Shamilov, who was on duty during the night, tried to retaliate. After
several minutes of skirmishing, he came out of the trench and advanced
toward the Armenian side while firing shots. Having killed two Armenian
soldiers, he died himself," the spokesman said.

Sabiroghlu said that although the enemy managed to remove the dead
bodies of their soldiers, the 20-year-old Azerbaijani soldier`s corpse
remained in an area very close to Armenian armed forces. Efforts are
being made to retrieve the body.

Sabiroghlu dismissed Armenian allegations that Azerbaijani
special troops had attempted to move behind Armenian units on the
frontline. "This is a concoction of the Armenian side," he added.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict over Upper
(Nagorno) Garabagh for over a decade. The region, which is
internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, was occupied
by Armenia in the early 1990s, along with seven other Azerbaijani
districts, after large-scale hostilities killed some 30,000 people
and forced one million Azeris from their homes. The ceasefire accord
was signed in 1994, but Armenian armed forces have repeatedly breached
the ceasefire along the frontline.

ARMENIAN, HUNGARIAN MINISTERS PRAISE TIES

Mediamax
Nov 17 2008
Armenia

Yerevan, 17 November: Armenian and Hungarian foreign ministers Edvard
Nalbandyan and Kinga Goncz signed an agreement in Yerevan today on
carrying out consultations within the framework of the EU’s European
Neighbourhood Policy.

Mediamax reported that Nalbandyan expressed his hope that the visit
of his Hungarian counterpart to Yerevan will give a new impulse to
the bilateral relations, "since the sides have great potential to
deepen and expand political, economic and cultural cooperation". Goncz
also spoke for forming more trusting relations between Armenia and
Hungary. She noted that Armenia is an EU neighbour state and there
is a need to develop relations in spheres that stimulate contacts
between people: education, culture, tourism.

THREE KILLED IN ARMENIAN-AZERI CLASH NEAR KARABAKH

Day.Az
Nov 17 2008
Azerbaijan

The Armenian and Azerbaijani troops clashed near the breakaway region
of Nagornyy Karabakh early on 16 November, leaving three servicemen
dead, Azerbaijan’s Defence Ministry has said.

The dead included one Azerbaijani and two Armenian soldiers, the
ministry spokesman, Eldar Sabiroglu, was quoted by the Day.az website
as saying.

The fighting broke out in Azerbaijan’s Fuzuli District, which is
partly controlled by Armenian forces, after the latter violated the
ceasefire, Sabiroglu said.

The dead Azerbaijani soldier was identified as Orxan Samilov, 20.

The Nagornyy Karabakh foreign ministry had earlier said one Azerbaijani
serviceman was killed during an attack on Armenian positions in Fuzuli,
Mediamax reported.

Meanwhile, the OSCE Minsk Group, which is mediating a peaceful
resolution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, expressed
concern over the clash, saying that it would start "crisis monitoring"
of the ceasefire line, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

RUSSIA-GEORGIA TALKS RESUME IN GENEVA

PanARMENIAN.Net
19.11.2008 14:56 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The European Union made a new attempt Wednesday
to get fractious talks going to resolve security and refugee issues
from the conflict over Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia,
the AP reports.

Eight parties were taking part in a one-day round of closed-door
meetings Wednesday to build on the first attempt at negotiations that
broke down last month after the parties failed to even agree on the
format of the talks.

The participants are Russia, Georgia, the United Nations, the United
States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The talks were expected to focus on security issues and refugees but
not to touch on border disputes

The Russian delegation will be led by Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory
Karasin.

IRAN: YEREVAN AND BAKU CAN REQUEST TEHRAN FOR ASSISTANCE IN KARABAKH CONFLICT RESOLUTION

PanARMENIAN.Net
19.11.2008 19:06 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Iran is concerned over ongoing tensions between
Azerbaijan and Armenia, Iranian Ambassador to Baku said.

"The OSCE Minsk Group’s endeavors for resolution of the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict may be endless but the world power do not practice
a just approach to problems," Nasir Hamidi Zare said, adding that
Iran could facilitate resolution of the Karabakh conflict

"Yerevan and Baku can request Tehran for assistance. Iran is a
regional country and can be helpful in the process," he said, Azeri
Press Agency reports.

THOSE IMPRISONED IN CASES RELATED TO MARCH 1-2 EVENTS TO GO ON ONE-DAY HUNGER STRIKE ON NOVEMBER 20 IN PROTEST AGAINST INCONSISTENCY OF COUNCIL OF EUROPE

Noyan Tapan

Nov 19, 2008

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The persons imprisoned in the
cases related to the March 1-2 events in Yerevan will go on a one-day
hunger strike on November 20 "in protest against the doublefacedness
and inconsistency of the Council of Europe".

Members of the Committee for Protection of Political Prisoners and
Persecuted Pertsons in Armenia Vardan Harutyunian, Gayane Martirosian,
Tigran Khzmalian, Mesrop Mesropian, Zhirayr Sefilian, Karapet Rubinian,
Norayr Norikian and Arshavir Bozinian stated: "As a sign of solidarity
with our friends who even in prison have not stopped for a second their
heroic struggle in the name of a free and democratic Armenia, we also
go on 24-hour hunger strike starting from 00:00 am of November 20".

SOME OF THE 301 TRIALS JUSTIFIED: MINISTER

Hurriyet
Nov 18 2008
Turkey

ANKARA – Compulsory Justice Ministry approval for Article 301
investigations to proceed is a positive step that allows most
investigations never to see the light of day, says Justice Minister
Mehmet Ali Å~^ahin, but notes that his ministry’s consent for charges
against a writer, Temel Demirer, are right because Demirer called
the country a killer

Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Å~^ahin defended his decision to consent
to prosecution of author Temel Demirer under the Turkish Penal Code’s
controversial Article 301, which criminalizes insulting "’Turkishness,’
the government and state institutions."

"Demirer claimed Turkey is a killer country. It killed Armenians
and now will kill Kurds. I won’t let anyone call my country killer,"
Å~^ahin said in an interview with the daily Sabah.

Article 301 has been a major point of criticism from the EU, which
Turkey wants to join. The article allows the prosecution of individuals
who are perceived to have insulted Turkishness, state institutions
and the top state officials and is seen by activists and EU officials
as a major impediment to freedom of speech.

Turkey’s Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk was among those prosecuted by
the article. The court stopped the trial after the Justice Ministry
failed to give consent.

Journalist Hrant Dink was prosecuted and found guilty in another 301
case, receiving a suspended sentence. Dink was later murdered by a
teenage nationalist who told the police he had shot the journalist
for insulting the country.

Justice Ministry approval needed for trial Turkey faced a barrage of
criticism due to the trials, with the government eventually changing
the penal code to allow 301 investigations to proceed only with
approval from the Justice Ministry. The authority to commence trials
concerning Article 301-related cases was given to the Justice Ministry
under an amendment made to the Turkish Penal Code in April 2008.

Some 381 Article 301-related cases have reached the ministry within
the last six months. The ministry examined 263 of them and didn’t
require a court investigation for 216 of them. The ministry approved
only 47 cases for court hearings, according to Å~^ahin.

Demirer was among those whom Å~^ahin gave consent for the
prosecution. Demirer was charged with insulting the Turkish nation
under Article 301 for his words right after the Armenian-Turkish
journalist Hrant Dink was killed in January 2007. He participated
in the protests in Ankara after Dink’s assassination and said the
government failed to prevent Dink from being killed.

"There is genocide in our history and its name is the Armenian
genocide. Hrant showed this fact with his own life. I commit a crime
and invite all to do the same. Those who don’t commit crime against
this killer government will share the guilt of Dink’s killers. We
should commit a crime in order to prevent what happened to those
Armenians in the past not to happen to Kurds today," he said.

The court requested a jail sentence of five years for Demirer.

Å~^ahin said what Demirer said went unnoticed but when the ministry
gave permit for the prosecution everybody felt sorry for him.

"This is not a freedom of expression. It exactly falls a crime of
insulting Turkish nation under the Article 301 of the Turkish Penal
Code," he said. Å~^ahin also said if the ministry permit wasn’t
required in line with the new amendment, the 381 cases concerning
the article would be on trial. He said those who defended the old
version of Article 301 shouldn’t ignore this fact.

–Boundary_(ID_lF79FnN2SeT/HHikqvU6TQ)–

A NEED FOR PERMANENT CRISES

Haykakan Zhamanak
Nov 13 2008
Armenia

Maybe, many people ask themselves what Armenian Prime Minister
Tigran Sargsyan was doing during the past seven or eight months,
after taking the office. It is impossible to see any result of his
activities. However, one thing could be seen yesterday. For all this
time, day and night, the prime minister was mastering the art of
presenting the non-existing things as if they existed, and was doing
it without changing the look or the colour of his face. It is not an
easy thing to do.

He said at the National Assembly [parliament] yesterday that "the
moves made jointly by the cabinet and the Central Bank enabled Armenia
to withstand the first wave of the world financial crisis". What
moves? The thing is that the Central Bank or the cabinet have not
done anything, nothing. There have been no such moves. They were not
even speaking of the crisis. To realize this one needs to simply look
at the decisions passed by the cabinet and the prime minister in the
past couple of months, as well as the steps taken at the Central Bank,
and we will see that no measures were taken.

Sargsyan made a sensational statement at another place yesterday. "With
the world financial crisis, there is a good opportunity for Armenia
to show its advantages and to try to attract the funds of the CIS
population and businessmen," he said. So, the "Novyye Vasyuki"
[referring to Russian "Twelve chairs" novel by Ilf and Petrov]
plans of becoming a world financial, cultural and know-how centre
are "vanishing" and new horizons are now opening before us thanks to
the world financial crisis. All we needed was a crisis to show our
advantages, something that is impossible under regular conditions.

Now, it is clear what the "Armenian world" of Serzh and Tigran Sargsyan
was. This is a crisis plan, the core of which is to permanently cause
crises in the world to show our advantages. And if the entire world
is in Armenia’s position, we can show some advantages because we are
the authors of it and are very professional in it. But I am afraid
that the world, taking into account Armenia’s experience, would not
agree to be in permanent crises just to see Armenia’s advantages.

THE PROJECT OF THE RAILWAY’S SALVATION CLOSE TO FAILURE

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
18 Nov 08
Armenia

It is not a secret that Armenian Railways is in a sad situation.

Taking into consideration the before mentioned fact, in the begging
of this year "Armenian Railways" was handed over to concessionary
management aimed at saving the railways. More than eight months have
passed, but not only has the situation remained the same, but it has
even deteriorated.

If before the concessionary management the freights reached Yerevan
from Airum station in one, one and a half days, at present they
reach Yerevan only in 3-4 days. Instead of solving this problem the
leadership of the railway firstly raised the tariffs of the railway’s
services, reasoning that they are lower than the international prices.

So, a question arises here: "Does the quality of the service comply
with the international standards?" Definitely no.

HOLDING TALKS WITH SHUHAK

A1+
[06:18 pm] 18 November, 2008

Yerevan’s "Mika" is holding talks with Croatian expert Ivo
Shushak. Representatives of the football club told "A1+ that the talks
are drawing to an end and the sides will come to an agreement soon.

Ivo Shushak is a well-known football trainer. He has been the
chief trainer of the Georgian team and has headed the Tbilisi
"Dinamo". Shushak has also worked for a number of Croatian and
Slovenian teams and has been the chief trainer of the Croatian young
soccer team. During the past couple of years "Mika" has brought in
many experts. The 2008 series began with trainer Arkadi Andreasyan,
but he left in the summer and then came Ishtvan Sekech.

"Mika" plans on strengthening the team by adding Armenian players
Aghvan Lazarian, Alexander Tadevosyan and Ara Hakobyan from Belarus.