Author: Emil Lazarian

WRITTEN QUESTION ON FOREIGN COMPANIES’ INVOLVEMENT IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITY IN AZERBAIJAN’S OCCUPIED LANDS PRESENTED TO THE PACE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Jan 16 2007

Member of Azerbaijan’s delegation to the PACE, MP Ganira Pashayeva,
has presented a written question to the Committee of Ministers of
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Ganira Pashayeva told the APA that the written questions on the
foreign companies’ involvement in illegal activities in the occupied
territories of Azerbaijan touch upon Armenia’s continuing to occupy 20%
of Azerbaijani territory, ethnic cleansing carried out by the Armenian
armed forces, eviction of some 1 million Azerbaijani people who have
lived under unbearable conditions as Internally Displaced People
(IDP), Armenia’s vandalizing Azerbaijan’s historical and cultural
monuments and trying to wipe out the traces of Azerbaijanis.

"Pace Resolution 1416 (2003) demands that Armenia has to withdraw
from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan and internally displaced people
should return to their homeland.

During the period as from the adoption of this resolution, Armenia
has not honoured the resolution and even enlarged non-compliance
with international legal norms and conventions in the occupied
territories. Anyway, in contradiction to the international conventions,
Armenia and the separatist Nagorno Karabakh managed to attract a number
of foreign companies to make investment in these territories illegally.

At present, some 70 foreign companies have been involved in illegal
activities in these lands without authorization of Azerbaijan. There
are companies of the USA, Canada, France, the United Kingdom,
Switzerland and others among the involved. 897 hectares of forests
were destroyed during the eight-month period of 2006. There are
seven wood manufacturing plants working illegally in the occupied
territories. Armenians waste water resources in Lachin and Kalbajar,
the occupied regions," she underlined.

She said that the questions include the full list of the companies
and the countries.

Ganira Pashayeva referred to Hague Convention IV on Laws and Customs of
War on Land, saying that Article 55 reads: "The occupying state shall
be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings,
real estate, forests and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile
State, and situated in the occupied territory. It must safeguard the
capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with
the rules of usufruct. In other words, title to such property shall
not pass to the occupying State, and upon termination of the war,
the seized items and real estate shall be restored. According to
Oppenheim, immovable private enemy property may under no circumstances
or conditions be appropriated by an invading belligerent. Should it
confiscate and sell private land or buildings, the buyer would acquire
no right whatever to the property… if the occupant has appropriated
and sold such private or public property as may not legitimately be
appropriated by a military occupant, it may afterwards be claimed
from the purchaser without payment of compensation," she mentioned.

Having expressed deep concern over illegal actions of Armenia and the
separatist regime of Nagorno Karabakh, which are contradictory to
the international conventions, Ganira Pashayeva asks the Committee
of Ministers: -Whether Council of Europe would urge member-states
to review and put an end to their respective national companies’
involvement into illegal activities in the occupied territories of
Azerbaijan pursued in collaboration with the occupying authorities
and without consent of the Government of Azerbaijan?

-Why Foreign Ministers of member states don’t provide complete
information on their respective national companies’ involvement into
illegal activities in the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, as well
as in other conflict zones throughout the Council of Europe space
such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia? This could simplify setting up
monitoring group dealing with investigation into the state of the
natural resources in the conflict zones.

-Why the Committee of Ministers refrain from making use of effective
mechanisms at its disposal to influence the Government of Armenia to
abstain in the future from actions that prevent lasting peace in the
region from being achieved, including its continued non-compliance
with PACE Resolution 1416 (2003)?

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ON JANUARY 25 "ARMENTEL" TO START DISCONNECTING FROM ITS NET THE COMPANIES, INVOLVED IN IP-TELEPHONY

Mediamax, Armenia
Jan 16 2007

Yerevan, January 16 /Mediamax/. From January 25 "ArmenTel" will start
to disconnect from its net the companies, involved in IP-Telephony, the
General Director of the Company Oleg Bliznyuk stated in Yerevan today.

Mediamax reports that speaking at a news conference in Yerevan today,
Oleg Bliznyuk stressed that not a single company, providing services
of IP-Telephony, has a corresponding license.

"They steal traffic from us, and we are not going to accept it",
the General Director of "ArmenTel" stated.

He stated that today there are about 300 illegal providers of
IP-Telephony, functioning on the market; however, it is impossible
to calculate their exact number, as they are not registered.

The meeting with the leadership of "ArmenTel", which took place in
Yerevan last week, was visited by only 8 companies, in particular,
Avrora, MediaLink, and "Dashink". Oleg Bliznyuk stated that during
that meeting the providers were proposed to become the dealers of
"ArmenTel". According to him, negotiations are already held with some
companies, and all the other providers will be disconnected.

"If we want others to treat Armenia as a civilized country, we should
act in a civilized manner on the market", Oleg Bliznyuk stated.

Concerning the refusal from monopoly for this kind of services by
"ArmenTel", Oleg Bliznyuk stated, that "this cannot happen in a day,
as the legal documents and the technical basis should be prepared
for that".

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIAN "HNCHAKYAN" PARTY WITHDRAWS ACCUSATIONS OF MISINFORMATION AGAINST ARKA NEWS AGENCY

Arka News Agency, Armenia
Jan 16 2007

YEREVAN, January 15. /ARKA/. The Department of Information and
Propaganda, Lebanese chapter of the "Hnchakyan" social and democratic
party, has retracted its own information on the misinformation
allegedly spread by the ARKA News Agency that the Armenian community
in Lebanon is struggling against the country’s authorities.

"It should be noted that the report of the ARKA News Agency does
not contain this information, which is `newspapers’ conjectures’,"
says the party’s press release provided to ARKA.

A representative of the "Sargis Tkhruni" youth and students union,
"Hnchakyan" party, told ARKA that a number of newspapers made their
own comments on the meeting between Catholicos of the Great House of
Cilicia Aram I and the US Ambassador.

"In their information the newspapers refer to ARKA, and we had the
impression that the information was spread by your news agency,"
he said, offering his official apology to the editor of the ARKA
News Agency.

The Department of Information and Propaganda, Lebanese chapter of the
"Hnchakyan" social and democratic party spread the misinformation
this morning.

The ARKA News Agency urges political parties to verify the original
information before making any statements. The news on the meeting
between Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I and the US
Ambassador was on the ARKA web-site for free access.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LOVE FOR THOSE JUST ACROSS THE BORDER

Kommersant, Russia
Jan 16 2007

// A Survey Looks at Russian Attitudes Towards the Ethnic Groups of
the Former USSR

A public opinion poll commissioned by Kommersant from the All-Russia
Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) shows that rumors of growing
feelings of nationalism in Russia may have been grossly over-inflated,
at least with regard to attitudes towards people from the former
Soviet republics.

Residual Internationalism

The year 2006 in Russia was marred by massive unrest in the small
northern city of Kondopoga; still more xenophobic murders around
the country; checks of people in schools and casinos on the basis
of nationality; inspections of and bans on wine, mineral water,
and other products on a similar basis of nationality; the slogan
"the Russian market is for Russians"; and the regularly-scheduled
(though it was officially banned this time around) fascist parade in
Moscow on National Unity Day.

Under these circumstances, it was decided to compile the results
of a public opinion poll on the attitudes of Russians towards the
constituent nationalities of the former USSR. The fifteen republics
were Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova,
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.

However, the poll, in which people living in Russia were asked to
evaluate their feelings towards the fifteen titular ethnic groups
of the former Soviet republics, showed that the Soviet legacy of
internationalist education remains reasonably strong (here it is
tempting to add the entirely un-Soviet exclamation "Thank God!").

The overall ratings of attitudes towards the fifteen nationalities
all fell between 3.48 and 3.92 on a five-point scale similar to
the one familiar to all Russians from primary school, where a grade
of one is extremely poor and a grade of five is outstanding. Thus,
those in Russia appear to tend predominantly towards neutrality in
their relations with people from the former republics, including
other ethnic Russians.

Care should be taken not to evaluate the poll results with either
undue optimism or excessive pessimism. On the one hand, certain
artifacts of sociological research are well-known, such as the
tendency of respondents to attempt to show themselves to their best
advantage when answering poll questions. For example, to the question
"Who is your favorite composer?", a person will answer "Mozart", even
though he or she actually prefers to listen to cheesy pop stations
on the radio. It is possible that many of those who were polled were
attempting to present themselves as more internationally-minded and
less xenophobic than they really are. Even if this is the case,
however, that means that Russian society currently looks upon
nationalism as something unseemly, something indecent about which it
is better to keep quiet – like a habit of urinating in the stairwell
of your apartment building. Such an attitude towards racism and
xenophobia is not entirely a bad thing.

On the other hand, the largest number of negative responses concerning
attitudes towards a given nationality was almost 18%.

Logically, then, at least one person in five in Russia is infected
with nationalism. In addition, the poll did not include questions
regarding several ethnic groups that are considered traditional
targets of nationalist and racist attitudes, so the discovery of a
high level of xenophobia in 18% of respondents may be an underestimate.

However, the hostile 18% is almost always balanced by a similarly-sized
friendly faction. Relations with all of the ethnicities included in
the poll were graded as "very good" or "excellent" by 13% or more of
respondents. The two roughly balanced factions thus paint an overall
picture of neutrality.

It is probably not necessary to comment at length on the distribution
of the different ethnic groups across the rankings, since the results
are all fairly predictable. In first place, the Russians humbly placed
themselves, followed by Belarussians (a union between the two countries
exists in the minds of many people, even if not in reality). Third
place went to the Ukrainians. The second-to-last place is shared by
Georgians and Lithuanians, and the Estonians come in last. The poor
showing by all three of the Baltic nationalities is in keeping with
the fact that these nations were the first to want to leave and, in
fact, the first to quit the "indissoluble" Soviet Union. In personal
relations, that is often called just plain not getting along.

The lowest percentage of positive responses was received by the Kyrgyz
(13.74%), and the highest percentage of negative responses targeted
Georgians (17.7%).

Of the non-Slavic nationalities, the largest percentage of positive
evaluations was reported for the Azerbaijanis (19.34%), and the
Kazakhs enjoyed the lowest fraction of negative appraisals (6.43%).

Where Internationalists and Xenophobes Live

Let us take a look at who most often claimed to have a positive
opinion of the nationalities of the former USSR.

People with "excellent" attitudes towards other ethnic groups
tended to be between 35 and 44 years of age, while pensioners were
the least likely to have a positive outlook on members of foreign
nationalities. Predominant among respondents who said that they
get along well with people of any nationality are those with less
than a high school education. The most popular occupation for these
internationally-minded individuals is as unskilled laborers. Many
unemployed people also claimed to have good relations with other
nationalities. Internationalists tend to live mainly in large
cities, particularly Moscow and St. Petersburg, and they are also
well-represented in the Northwestern and Far-Eastern federal regions.

Their ranks are fairly evenly split between men and women.

The army and the police love the Ukrainians (not a single negative
comment about people from Ukraine was recorded from representatives
of any of the armed or police forces), while the Belarussians are
the darlings of the business world. Almost no housewife sees a reason
to dislike the Georgians, and the Moldavians and the Kazakhs receive
top marks from unemployed people.

People who described their material situation as very good ("I can buy
an apartment or a car") also turned out to have strong internationalist
leanings. This small group of citizens refrained almost entirely from
making negative comments about people of any ethnicity.

Moving on to those who admitted to having "poor" and "very poor"
relations with their neighbors just across the border, we find that
men and women again each make up around 50% of respondents. In what
may be symptomatic of a worrisome trend, most of them are between
the ages of 15 and 24. Educationally, they are predominantly high
school or vocational academy graduates, and they are chiefly employed
as skilled laborers or as specialists with a college degree who
work in the sciences or the arts. Those involved in business take a
particularly dim view of Azerbaijanis, while students in high school
and vocational schools agree with residents of Far-Eastern Siberia
in their dislike of Ukrainians. The military and police forces have
few kind words for Moldavians. The number of people in Moscow and St.

Petersburg who do not like Armenians and Georgians is unbelievably high
(around 40% and 35%, respectively), and those from the Baltic states
are also unpopular in the two capital cities. Those who most vehemently
dislike people from anywhere in Central Asia are concentrated in the
Volga River region.

For table, see

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

INSINCERITY STEMMING FROM THE US RAID IN ARBIL
by Semih Idiz

Milliyet, Turkey
Jan 15 2007

Turkish Press Warns Against Turkey-USA-Iraq Confrontation Scenario

The [11 January] raid by US forces on an Arbil office where
Iranians worked and the detention of the people there on suspicion of
"supporting terrorist activities" is interpreted in Ankara as "a sign
of American insincerity".

This event and other recent developments also explain why Prime
Minister Erdogan has accused the United States, which he once called
"our so-called strategic partner," of not being serious in the battle
against the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party].

This is because the raid in Arbil – like the Al-Sulaymaniyah raid that
has gone down in our history as the "hooding incident" – shows that
the US army, which insists that it has "only limited room for military
action" in northern Iraq, can find "room for action" when it wants.

The Arbil raid also refutes the argument that American forces "do not
want to take action against the PKK in order not to anger the local
Kurdish administration." That is because the Kurds insist that the
Iranians who have been detained were there with the knowledge of the
Baghdad government and are upset about the raid.

‘Stay Away from Iran’

In this regard, Iraq’s Kurdish Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari,
disclosed that the liaison office where the detained Iranians were
working has been active in the country for ten years.

Kurdish observers also find it interesting that this raid occurred soon
after the visit Iraqi President Jalal Talabani paid to Iran a short
while ago with the purpose of building new ties with that country. In
sum, this raid is interpreted as a message of "stay away from Iran"
addressed to the Kurds.

Naturally, all these are noted down in Ankara. The anger of the Turkish
side is further fuelled by information that PKK militants on Mount
Kandil have access to various facilities, chiefly health care centres,
in northern Iraqi cities – with the knowledge of the US forces.

Another aggravating factor is that PKK leaders are able to hold press
conferences for the foreign media without any fear of being caught.

In sum, Turkish-US relations will evidently grow even more tense when
the PKK resumes its attacks in the spring. Since this would coincide
with the time when allegations of Armenian genocide will resurface in
the US Congress, bilateral relations are likely to sink to the bottom.

No Support Over PKK

It is now very clear that at this stage the United States will not
offer any support to Turkey on the issue of battling PKK terrorism.

Washington has also invalidated its own excuses for its inaction on
this issue with steps such as the Arbil raid.

If Turkish-American relations have any "strategic importance" left
in them for either side – and these developments make it hard for
us to answer in the affirmative – then the two sides need to create
a political climate that will contribute to their mutual interests
without delay.

Otherwise, it is not inconceivable that the Turkish government and
army might declare the United States, already seen as an "enemy"
by the Turkish people, as an "adversary" more explicitly and the two
sides might confront each other in a dangerous setting in northern
Iraq. This dangerous prospect, which was "inconceivable" in the past,
is on the verge of taking on the status of "certainly possible."

TURKISH NATIONALISTS HACKED WEBSITE OF BELGIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY

De Standaard website, Belgium
15 Jan 2007

"Turkish nationalists hack website of Federal Defence Department",

A group of Turkish nationalists hacked the website of the Federal
Defence Department for a while on Sunday [14 January]. The hackers
identified themselves as the "grandchildren of the Ottoman Empire".

The Defence Ministry will lodge a complaint.

On Sunday, the Defence Ministry’s website displayed an unusual page
signed "Hacked by VolTigoRe – Turk Forcers". The normal homepage
had been replaced by a text posted by Turkish hackers. The hackers
wrote in bad English that they are defenders of Islam. The hackers
also mentioned the 1915-17 Armenian genocide and claimed that "the
Turks had been compelled to defend themselves against the Armenians,
who had killed many Turks".

In addition, the hackers wrote that "there is no Kurdish problem
in Turkey" and that the PKK [Kurdish Workers’ Party] is a terrorist
movement that is receiving foreign support. The hackers ended their
text by threatening that they "will never stop hacking your websites
whenever mistakes vis-a-vis Turkey are being made".

This text disappeared later in the day. The website was inaccessible
as of 1330 [1230 gmt]. According to a defence employee, it was to go
back online in the course of the day, but he was unable to say around
what time this would happen.

Defence Ministry will lodge complaint

The Belgian Defence Ministry will lodge a complaint against the group
of Turkish nationalists.

According to Ingrid Baeck, the ministry’s spokesperson, the hacked
website – [1] – does not contain confidential information.

The site is managed by the general directorate for public relations
and image building. The Defence Ministry immediately launched an
investigation to find out how the internet pirates had managed to
hack the site. "We will take additional measures to avoid this from
happening again," Baeck said.

The defence spokeswoman added that websites of other foreign defence
departments, including that of the Pentagon, also fell victim to
hackers in the past.

ARSHAK SADOYAN: STRUGGLE FOR HOLDING FAIR ELECTIONS WILL TURN INTO VELVETY REVOLUTION

Noyan Tapan
Jan 15 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. Unlike majority of opposition forces,
the Union of National Democrats party excluded holding of special
parliamentary elections and said that it is necessary to prepare for
regular 2007 elections.

Chairman of the Union of National Democrats, Arshak Sadoyan said
this at the January 13 press conference. In his first, the first and
foremost task of the current Armenian parties should be to struggle
for fair, transparent elections, for the authorities to fail to form
"a painted parliament." "In the current situation there is a real
possibility to disclose falsifications and to move to a velvety
revolution," A.Sadoyan assured.

In his words, the Union of National Democrats plans to have 7-8
"firm persons" at polling stations who will fight for holding fair
elections and will form an atmosphere that will turn into a velvety
revolution. At the same time, A.Sadoyan stressed that by saying a
"firm person" he means not muscular or physically strong persons,
but those who will not be bribed.

In A.Sadoyan’s words, instead of preparing the process of control for
the elections, many forces announcing themselves opposition ones,
"due to bribe given by the authorities" try to distract public
attention by proposing fighting crime, "some broom wars," etc.

The Chairman of the Union of National Democrats called all opposition
parties for taking part in the forthcoming elections without fail. As
he affirmed, boycott is only a means of avoiding responsibility.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NEW PENSION SYSTEM TO COME INTO FORCE IN ARMENIA FROM JANUARY 1, 2008

Noyan Tapan
Jan 15 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. The new mixed pension system wil
start functioning in Armenia from January 1, 2008. As the Noyan Tapan
correspondent was informed by the RA Social Insurance State Fund,
as of that day, citizens below 30 will surely be involved in the
new pension system. And people at the age of 30-45 will be given
possibility of choice, to stay in the old system or to pass to the
new one. Citizens after 45 will stay in the old pension system.

The new pension system will involve 4 degrees: old age minimum social
benefit, base pension, obligatory and saving pension, voluntary
saving pension. The pension size will be decided by the new system
according to the same scheme: base pension which will be given by
the state, the capital of the pension gathered during the summed up
years divided the middle duration of life followed the pension age
what makes 19-20 years in Armenia. In this case, factually not the
state but a citizen himself decides the size of his pension by the
money paid by himself. As a result, the size of the pension being
got is closer to the size of the payment got before that.

The pension system reforms are necessary also in the sense that
if they are not initiated it will be necessary to make the process
of collecting social payments more effective in parallel to change
of the demographic picture in Armenia: reduction of the number of
population able to work and adding of the number of people at the
pension age. About 432 thousand paid employees pay social payments
for 530 pensioners’ pension. Factually, 0.9 paid employee falls to
1 pensioner’s lot what is a great weight for the working population.

The necessity of reformation of the present system is provided by a
number of factors: the social justice principle is violated, people
made higher social payments get relatively less pension.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NUMBER OF VIRAL HEPATITIS CASES GROWS BY 36 IN NOVEMBER 2006 ON SAME MONTH OF PREVIOUS YEAR

Noyan Tapan
Jan 15 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. 19 cases of contagious diseases were
registered in Armenia in November 2006. According to the RA Ministry
of Health, 10,250 acute respiratory diseases, 386 acute intestinal
infections, 76 cases of pulmonary teberculosis were registered in the
country, which represents a decline by 1,673, 7 and 6 cases compared
with the previous month.

99 cases of vital hepatitis, 16 cases of salmonellosis and 6 cases
of infectious mononucleosis were registered in November of last
year, which represents a growth by 36, 3 and 2 cases compared with
November 2005.

"HANRAPETUTIUN" PARTY TO ATTEMPT TO PREVENT AUTHORITIES’ REPRODUCTION, SUREN SURENIANTS ASSURES

Noyan Tapan
Jan 16 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, NOYAN TAPAN. The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA)
and the "Bargavach Hayastan" (Prosperous Armenia) party attempt to "buy
the society" under the mask of charity, calling into serious question
the legality of the 2007 parliamentary elections by this. Suren
Sureniants, a member of the "Hanrapetutiun" party political council
made such a statement at the January 16 press conference. In his words,
not having legal, just possibilities of reproduction, the authorities
will attempt to initiate falsifications.

S.Sureniants emphasized that the "Hanrapetutiun" party will do its
best to lay obstacles on the way of implementation of the authorities’
similar programs.

At present the "Hanrapetutiun" party discusses some variants of
participation in the coming elections. In S.Sureniants’ words,
the first variant is independent participation in the elections,
the second variant is presenting itself with an alliance created with
co-thinking parties based on ideological-political basis. The third
variant, in S.Sureniants’ words, "is technological unification," which
will be formed on a concrete problem, that’s, to control transparence
of the coming elections. That technological unification, as the
"Hanrapetutiun" political council member explained, will involve in
itself pivotal subjects of the opposing field of the country. In
S.Sureniants’ words, the party’s format of participation in the
parliamentary elections will be finally defined in early February.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress