Author: Emil Lazarian

Japan to invest in Yerevan power plant
Interfax
June 8 2004
Yerevan. (Interfax) – The Japanese government plans to invest $4.5
million in the construction of a thermal power plant in Yerevan with a
capacity of 1.5 megawatts based on a waste incineration plant, Armenian
Natural Resource Minister Vardan Aivazyan told journalists on Monday.
He said that the ministry has approved the construction of the plant
and thermal power plant at the Nurabshen dump, which covers an area
of over 60 hectares. Talks are currently underway between a potential
subcontractor for the project – Japan’s Shimizu – and the Yerevan
Mayor’s Office.
Aivazyan said that the project would involve the use of up to 800 –
900 cubic meters of rubbish per day to produce methane to be used in
electricity production.
The minister said that recently Armenia set an output tariff for
electricity produced from burning biogas of $0.08 per 1 kWh. The
investor is happy with this tariff.
He said that the talks should be completed by September 10, after
which construction should begin.
Diana Arutyunyan, the national coordinator of the project, told
Interfax that the Japanese state company New Energy and Industrial
Technology Organization plans to finance the project.
She said that Shimizu has already completed the first stage of work on
an audit and preparation of a feasibility study. She also said that
the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is interested
in this project.
Electricity production in Armenia fell 0.29% to 5.5 billion kWh
in 2003.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azer Tag, Azerbiajan State Info Agency
June 7 2004
INTERVENTION IN RADIO SPACE OF OUR COUNTRY STOPPED
[June 07, 2004, 15:53:49]
Broadcasting of the tele-channels of Iran and Armenia in the border
areas of Azerbaijan is one of the problems causing concern of the
society.
As Minister of Communications and information technologies Ali Abbasov
informed the correspondent of AzerTAj, our country is a member of
the International Telecommunication Association. Members of the said
Association should observe the established legal rules. According to
these rules, television and radio channels of the frontier countries,
depending on relief, can be broadcast in territory of the next state
on distance almost 300 kilometers. However, it should be carried out
by regulation of channels between the countries. The Iranian TV channel
“Seger-2” possesses very powerful transmitting system. Therefore, airs
programs of this channel are possible to look sometimes even in Hovsan,
a settlement of Baku. For solution of the mentioned problem in the
corresponding zone a new transmitter was installed as a result of which
the radius of broadcasting of this channel was considerably reduced.
According to minister, for the full termination of broadcasting were
singed two protocols with the Iranian officials. According to the
protocols, the neighbors should bring corresponding technical changes
to the transmitter of the mentioned channel.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ARMENIA’S FOREIGN MILITARY POLICY BASED ON COMPLEMENTARITY, SENIOR OFFICER SAYS
ArmenPress
June 7 2004
YEREVAN, JUNE 7, ARMENPRESS: A senior army officer told reporters last
weekend that the army is fully prepared to accept the first conscripts,
granted the right to alternative military service. Lieutenant Colonel
Sedrak Sedrakian, the chief of the legal department at the defense
ministry, said all relevant infrastructures will be ready on July 1.
He said the major task faced now by the defense ministry is to ensure
a full application of the Law on Alternative Military Service. He
said the locations where the alternative conscripts will serve, the
design of their special uniforms will be submitted soon to government’s
approval. The army officer said everything must be done to organize
alternative military service in a way that not violate the conscripts’
rights concurrently avoiding jeopardizing the national security of
the country.
Sedrakian also said some 120 million Drams were collected from
Armenian citizens who dodged mandatory military service escaping
from Armenia in early nineties. Under the law, that came into effect
on March 1, such citizens who have reached the age of 27 can avoid
criminal responsibility after coming back to Armenia by paying around
$3,500. He said a special inter-agency commission founded to consider
such application can consider some 30 applications a day
In a related development, Major-General Mikael Melkonian, the head of
a defense ministry department for external relations and cooperation,
reiterated that Armenia’s foreign military policy is based on what
is known as “complementarity.” Speaking at special discussions at the
American University of Armenia on the existing problems in the Armenian
armed forces, the General said the major points of Armenian military
policy is to keep the military and strategic balance, constructive
cooperation will all interested forces and building the security
environment in the region.
He pointed to Armenia’s allied partnership with Russia and its
membership to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which he
said is the main security guarantee of Armenia and also to Armenia’s
close cooperation with NATO within the frameworks of the latter’s
Partnership for Peace program, underlying the presence of an Armenian
peace-keeping platoon in Kosovo. “Unlike some years ago when Armenia’s
participation in Partnership for Peace program was limited to attending
several training courses, now we are moving towards close practical
exercises,” he said.

Platform souls: New plans for King’s Cross in London show the massive scale of the venture
The Guardian (London)
June 7, 2004
Platform souls: New plans for King’s Cross in London show the massive
scale of the venture. And the smart money – including that of New
York art tycoon Larry Gagosian – is already moving in. By Jonathan
Glancey
The hype surrounding the opening of the Gagosian Gallery in King’s
Cross, London, has been so great and the plaudits have been so
glittering that I expected to find something very special indeed.
Not, perhaps, a riposte to the Bilbao Guggenheim by Frank Gehry but a
landmark building; an artistic adventure.
The Gagosian Gallery proves to be a modest creation, housed in a
former garage in Britannia Street, a rats’ alley smelling of diesel
and urine, scuttling across the Metropolitan and Circle underground
lines as they rattle between Farringdon and King’s Cross-St Pancras.
Behind the gaunt facade, Larry Gagosian’s architects, Caruso St John,
best known for their New Art Gallery, in Walsall, which opened in
2000, have opened up bright, cavernous, concrete-floored, top-lit
white spaces. These are particularly refined white spaces; they have
something of a religious air about them, not least because on a
weekday afternoon this private gallery is as quiet as an abandoned
city church. A security guard sits like a piece of isolated artwork
by the locked door, while bright young things potter about at a vast
reception desk faced with important catalogues. A solitary, studious
looking fellow surveys the brown and white Cy Twombly abstracts,
which hang from the spotless white walls with a degree of respect
owed to icons and statues elsewhere.
None of this is a criticism of this new London art space, which is
one of the best of its kind since Charles Saatchi’s original gallery
in St John’s Wood, designed by the late Max Gordon. Caruso St John
are among our most thoughtful architects, as careful with the process
of building as they are with design. And, yet, for all its graceful
substance, the gallery has something of a temporary air about it.
Should the top end of the art market take a tumble between now and
the completion of the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras in 2007, it
would make a particularly fine restaurant, office or nightclub.
The area will certainly want these as its redevelopment gathers pace
over the next five years. Seedy for decades, King’s Cross is
fast-becoming a blue-chip investment for property developers. Quite
how the promethean building works promised here will pan out is
anyone’s guess. For every impressive new civil engineering
achievement, there will be routine chain stores; for every art
gallery, a fast-food joint. Expect, in time-honoured English
tradition, a mix of the sublime and the banal: the Gormenghast glory
of St Pancras raised to fresh, pinnacled heights as Eurostar trains
snake in and out on their three-mile-a-minute race to and from Paris
with its cafes, restaurants, shops and art galleries. Penny-plain
King’s Cross station stripped of 1970s tat. Both stations are
attended by millions of square feet of gleaming new offices, some
1,800 flats, dozens of shops, washed and brushed public spaces, three
new footbridges over the Regent’s Canal, restored historic buildings
and, so the developers say, more art galleries.
This leviathan plan, announced last week, for the 67-acre area north
of the Gagosian Gallery, has been prepared by a property consortium
comprising Argent St George, Exel, London and Continental Railways.
Allies and Morrison, immaculate Moderns, and Demetri Porphyrios, the
most convincing of the Prince of Wales’s school of classicists, have
been appointed architects in charge of a development that, in scale
at least, matches the heroic urban projects that shaped Victorian
London. The £2bn project will take at least 15 years to complete. It
may yet be rejected by the mayor of London, who will surely find its
tallest 19-storey towers too modest and its plan not sufficiently
dedicated to the concerns of big business. It may yet be called in
for public inquiry by the government, and either held up, heavily
edited or abandoned while lawyers rack up prodigious fees.
Whatever the process – the rise and fall of commercial and
professional reputations, the jaw-dropping fees, the performance
bonuses, pension top-ups, the gongs awarded and brown envelopes
exchanged – King’s Cross will surely be redeveloped on a titanic
scale within the next 10 and 20 years. The dodgy young men,
working-class street-walkers and middle-class kerb-crawlers will move
on, along with the purveyors of kebabs, tattoos and grubby mags.
Spick and span corporate offices, big-brand shops, chain cafes and
relentless street furniture interspersed with well-meant public art
will take their place.
Architects of the calibre of Allies and Morrison and Demetri
Porphyrios will do their best to raise the standards of St Pancras
but they cannot hope to control the quality of the tenants who will
flock here in coming years. There will be something like 30,000 new
jobs here, while millions of passengers travelling to and from London
and the Continent, and looking for diversion, will mill around King’s
Cross. A committed few might waft down New Britannia Street to pick
up a canvas by Cy Twombly or a pickled lamb by Damien Hirst.
Gagosian, however, ought to know what most people will want. This
sharp, silver-haired Armenian-American, nicknamed “Go-Go”, began
making money in Santa Monica in the 1970s. “I would buy prints for $
2-$ 3, put them in aluminium frames and sell them for $ 15,” says the
Donald Trump of the art world. If Gagosian likes art, he likes
nothing better than closing deals. He opened a small gallery behind
Regent Street a few years ago, also a conversion by Caruso St John,
before homing in on King’s Cross, which offers an optimum deal: a
place to show big, headline-stealing artworks – tens of tons of Serra
– in a handsome setting in the sort of grubby street that makes the
art world trill with excitement, while making a quiet future killing
on the property market.
Gagosian likes art, and knows that this, with all its high society
connections, brings kudos, glamour and outlandishly big bucks. Should
you happen to be a wheeler-dealer who builds a fashionable gallery
showing fashionable artists in one of the most fashionable
up-and-coming parts of London, how can you possibly go wrong?
Gagosian’s gung-ho, yet outwardly, highly refined, venture into the
London art world and King’s Cross is, perhaps, to be preferred to the
run-of-the-mill development that could take place here if we fail to
keep a sharp eye on the area and the hugely ambitious “masterplans”
dreamed up by one developer after the other over the past 15 years.
No one should doubt that the real artwork here is the arrival of the
high-speed Eurostar line. This, like the Midland Railway’s grand
Gothic entry into St Pancras some 140 years ago, will change the face
of the surrounding area, including Britannia Street, for ever.
guardian.co.uk/glancey
Graceful substance . . . the new Gagosian Gallery. Below, the
interior, with Rachel Whiteread’s Ghost. Below right, a model of the
planned King’s Cross redevelopment
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
June 7, 2004, Monday
ARMENIA: DEFENSE EXPENSES INCREASE
Armenia plans to increase the defense budget in 2005. This statement
was made by Serj Sargsyan, Defense Minister and Secretary of the
Security Council, after the end of a hearing in the parliament. This
year Armenia’s defense expenses amount to around $85 million. Serj
Sargsyan noted that the government intends to increase servicemen’s
money allowances and rearm the Armed Forces.
Source: Krasnaya Zvezda, June 3, 2004, p. 3
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Baku’s Building Boom Reveals Grave Inequity
By Chloe Arnold
Moscow Times
June 8 2004
BAKU, Azerbaijan — If you can judge a country’s economy by the amount
of construction work going on, Azerbaijan is booming. You can’t move
in the capital, Baku, for all the construction sites, towering cranes
and wobbly trucks stacked high with joists and scaffolding.
>>From my bedroom window I can see the empty shells of at least half
a dozen high-rise blocks. With money flooding in from oil sales —
Azerbaijan backs onto the Caspian Sea, which is believed to hold
the world’s third largest-reserves — the race is on to build luxury
apartments for all the newcomers setting up shop here.
But it isn’t just foreigners they are catering to. The number of
Azeris with cash to throw around is on the rise, too. When I first
arrived in Baku, you could get to anywhere in the center of town
within 10 minutes.
Today the roads are so clogged with New Azeris driving shiny black
Mercs or executive jeeps, you’re hard-pressed to make it in less than
half an hour. In fact, these days you’re better off walking.
But it’s the rate at which buildings are going up that’s so alarming.
Baku’s skyline has changed more in the last 18 months than it has for
more than a century. And contractors are falling over each other to
sell their apartments before anyone else. Friends recently bought a
flat in a new luxury block, only to discover that they have to step
over piles of rubble to get to it: The higher floors aren’t quite
finished, they were told.
With all these sleek new buildings appearing across the city, the
difference between rich and poor has become even starker. Just behind
the extensive new Taekwondo Center for Azerbaijan — all pillars and
marble and dancing fountains — stands a half-finished block with no
electricity or water, where hundreds of refugees from the war with
neighboring Armenia are living.
They’re so close to the martial arts school they can see the children
of rich Azeris practicing their moves. But they’re as far from being
able to afford to attend the classes as it’s possible to be.
Nevertheless, I’m not sure I’d want to live in any of the new
buildings. They’re built to Turkish specifications, but when you
remember the earthquake in Izmir in 1999, which killed 17,000 people,
that doesn’t sound reassuring. Many of the casualties were living in
houses built so shoddily that they simply caved in.
The frightening thing is that Baku, too, lies on a fault line. There
are regular ground tremors, and we’re due for another full-scale quake
sooner rather than later. And when that happens, the people who bought
penthouse suites aren’t going to be laughing any more. If they live
to tell the tale, that is.
Chloe Arnold is a freelance journalist based in Baku, Azerbaijan.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

United Nations Development Programme Country Office in Armenia
14, Karl Liebknecht Street, Yerevan 375010, Armenia
Contact: Aramazd Ghalamkaryan
Tel: (374 1) 56 60 73
Fax: (374 1) 54 38 11
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
UNDP COUNTRY OFFICE IN ARMENIA
*7 June, 2004
WITH A VISIT TO ARMENIA’S LARGEST DUMP, UNDP AND THE MINISTRY OF NATURE
PROTECTION LAUNCH ENVIRONMENT WEEK*
Yerevan, Armenia
Today, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry
of Nature Protection officially marked World Environment Day by
organising a media event in the country’s largest waste disposal site in
Nubarashen, near Yerevan. In close cooperation with UN Agencies and
local and international organisations, UNDP and the Ministry of Nature
Protection jointly initiated Environment Week, an advocacy campaign
aimed at raising public awareness on environmental issues. Mr. Vardan
Ayvazyan, Minister of Nature Protection, Ms. Lise Grande, UN Resident
Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative, representatives of the
Government, civil society and the mass media participated in the event.
Nubarashen waste disposal site receives almost all the solid waste
produced in Yerevan city and suburbs. As much as 340 tonnes per day, or
102,000 tonnes per year, is deposited in the site. Most of the waste in
Nubarashen is domestically produced by the approximately 1,280,000 who
live in these areas. Industrial waste accounts for only a small
proportion. Large quantities of landfill gas, mainly methane gas, are
produced by the waste and discharged into the atmosphere without being
fully utilised.
According to Ms. Grande: “It is very fortunate that Armenia has achieved
high rates of economic growth in the last decade. At this stage in the
country’s transition, is it critically important to focus on the
environmental aspects of economic growth. The sustainable management of
natural resources and a clean environment are key to the country’s
medium and long-term development. If the environment is destroyed or
damaged, the country will suffer. UNDP is currently one of the major
donors in the area of nature protection and we are confident that our
partnership with Government authorities and the civil society will help
to ensure a healthy environment for a healthy people.”
Background: Armenia has acceded to a number of international treaties
and conventions focused on the environment. UNDP’s National Capacities
Self-Assessment (NCSA) project aims to support the Government
in identifying gaps in meeting the requirements of these global
conventions. The goal of Environment Week, a joint advocacy initiative
of UNDP Armenia and the Ministry of Nature Protection, is to: promote
environmental activities at the community level; raise public awareness
of ongoing initiatives in the area of nature protection; highlight
existing environmental issues; and initiate a public debate on the
linkages between human development and nature protection. Environment
Week also aims to bring together major actors in nature protection
and help find solutions to very urgent and important environmental
problems facing the country and the whole Transcaucasian region.
***
UNDP is the UN’s global development network. It advocates for change and
connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people
build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with
them on their own solutions to global and national development
challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of
UNDP and our wide range of partners.
—
Aramazd Ghalamkaryan
Information and Resource Mobilisation Associate/
Support to UN Resident Coordinator
UNDP/UN Armenia
14 Karl Liebknecht St., Yerevan, 375010, Armenia
Tel: +3741 56 60 73 + 121
Mob: +3749 43 63 12
Fax: +3741 54 38 11
URLs: ;
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Turkish mayor says Armenia should close nuclear plant
Anatolia news agency, Ankara
6 Jun 04
Igdir, 6 June: Nurettin Aras, the mayor of northeastern province of
Igdir, has said that nuclear energy power plant in Armenia should be
shut down.
Speaking to the AA Anatolia correspondent on Sunday 6 June , Aras said
that the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant on Turkish-Armenian border posed
serious threat to Igdir as it was 15-20 kilometres from the province.
Noting that they had collected 2,500 signatures on the first day
of a one-week campaign launched by his office for closure of the
nuclear power plant, Aras said that they would bring their demand
to authorities.
Defending that the power plant had suffered damage in an earthquake
in Armenia in 1988 but it had not been reinforced, Aras claimed that
planes carried fuel oil to the power plant.
Recalling that the power plant was very close to city centre of
Igdir, Aras said: “Our residents are worried about any possible leak
or explosion at the power plant. Several trees near Armenian border
have died, causing us to feel we are in danger. I call on the World
Health Organization to take action as soon as possible. Necessary
initiatives should rapidly be launched to close down this plant.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Indusmin Receives Five-Year Extension of Licenses in Armenia
VANCOUVER, British Colombia–(BUSINESS WIRE)–06/06/2004–Indusmin Energy
Corp. (TSX VENTURE:IDM)(Berlin Wkn:469065) completed an agreement with Armenian
American Exploration Inc. (“AAEC”), of Solana Beach, California, on April
30, whereby Indusmin Energy Corp has acquired total interest in blocks 1 and 2,
Republic of Armenia, to Indusmin, in return for a non-disclosed override
over twenty years (see Press Release, May 25). The Armenian Energy Minister, Mr.
Armen Movsisyan has agreed to the assignment and has granted a five year
license extension to the existing licenses. After significant due diligence on
the existing data on Block 1 and 2, Indusmin has elected to relinquish all of
Block 1 in order to focus the initial activity on block 2.
“With this deal, the company is acquiring a vast geological and geophysical
database about Armenia’s Oil and Gas resources; in particular for blocks 2
and 3. At this stage there exists more technical information for the
Oktemberyan prospects than those in the Near Yerevan Basin, and with a major gas
pipeline twenty kilometers to the north, it is likely that this area will be first
priority for exploration work. On the other hand, there is a drilling rig and
considerable amounts of additional equipment already in the country. The rig
and camp are available for start working as soon as needed,” stated Carlos
Munoz President and CEO.
Block 2 extends across the basins with the greatest potential for finding
commercial deposits of oil and gas in the Republic of Armenia, these being:
1) The Armavir Basin, a sub-basin of the Ararat Intermontane Depression,
located some thirty kilometers due west of the capital city of Yerevan.
Numerous gas shows and some minor oil shows in several boreholes have been
found. Several prospects have been identified — the Karmir prospect, close to
the Oktemberyan-13E and 7P wells, with 10 BCF (billion cubic feet) of
recoverable reserves; South Artamet and North Artamet prospects with reserves of 30
and 50 BCF respectively. There are also other prospects, including one where
a major surface geo-chemical anomaly exists.
2)The Near Yerevan Basin, part of the Central Depression, located due east
of Yerevan. Ten kilometers due east of Yerevan, oil was recovered from the
Paleocene in the Shorakhpur-1P well in 1987. Azat-1, drilled by AAEC in 1998 on
a separate structure further east, encountered oil traces at a similar
geological level. Two prospects, Shorakhpur and Nubarashen, are estimated to each
contain twenty million barrels of recoverable oil.
“The Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Armenia has great hopes for block
2, especially since the addition of important information obtained from the
activities of AAEC and others since 1991. We hope that the successful
application of the mutually agreed work program will lead to a commercial discovery.
We are further encouraged because of the excellent relations between the
Ministry of Energy and Indusmin Corporation. The deal regarding block 2 is just
the starting point in the planned major cooperation between us,” Dr. Andranik
Aghabalyan (Head of Department of Fuel and Energy Underground Resources,
Ministry of Energy, Republic of Armenia).
Symbol: IDMNF (U.S.)
Symbol: IDM (Can.)
Symbol: Wkn:469065 (Berlin)
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility
for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
CONTACT:Indusmin Energy Corp., Vancouver Carlos Munoz, 604-960-9930
President & CEO fax: 604-608-4733 email: [email protected] website:
SOURCE: Indusmin Energy Corp.
06/06/2004 15:45 EASTERN
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

HEAD OF OSCE OFFICE WELCOMES RELEASE OF SOME ARMENIAN OPPOSITION MEMBERS
Noyan Tapan
7 June
YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan). The Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan,
Ambassador Vladimir Pryakhin, welcomed the release from custody of two
members of the opposition Republic party, Aramazd Zakaryan and Jora
Sapeyan, and the withdrawal of charges against them. He also welcomed
the news that a board member of the Republic party, Suren Surenyants,
has been released from custody, although he must not leave the country
pending investigation.
“We believe this step will facilitate political dialogue between the
opposition and the ruling coalition and will contribute to stability
in the country,” Ambassador Pryakhin said in an interview with Radio
Liberty. “At the same time, we note with concern that not all cases
of those detained in connection with the recent demonstrations were
reviewed.”
With regard to a recent decision of the Yerevan Mayor’s Office
to prohibit rallies by opposition parties on 4 June, Ambassador
Pryakhin said: “We regret that the right of people to free assembly
and expression of their political views was restricted. We urge the
authorities to apply the new law on Conduct of Public Gatherings,
Rallies, Demonstrations and Marches in a proportionate and justified
manner and make efforts to further improve this essential piece
of legislation.”
He stressed that the OSCE Office will continue to closely monitor
the political developments in Armenia and to support the country in
the process of democratization. He emphasized in particular the need
for electoral and constitutional reform.