IRAN STARTS GAS IMPORT TO ARMENIA TODAY
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
14.05.2009 11:27 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Iran starts importing gas to Armenian today.
"Yesterday all technical works were completed and valves opened
at Meghri-Yerevan sector," Lusine Harutyunyan, spokesperson for RA
Energy Ministry, told PanARMENIAN.Net "Pumping may start any moment,"
she said.
Armenia and Iran said an agreement on gas delivery in exchange for
electric power for 20-year term.
ARMENIA’S GOVERNMENT APPROVES RE-ALLOCATION OF SOCIAL SPENDING IN DRAFT BUDGET
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
14.05.2009 15:24 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Negotiations with the Word Bank on the topic of
additional resources have reached their ultimate phase, particularly,
related to the projects with state co-financing. This requires
reallocation of the budget resources, told a meeting of the government
Armenia’s minister of finance Tigran Davtyan on Thursday.
According to Mr.Davtyan, changes in the draft budget assume restoration
of two projects in the sphere of agriculture: "Consulting services"
and "Forest monitoring", which require 100 million AMD and 12 million
AMD respectively, as well as to restore temporally seized laboratories
in high schools, which require 150 million AMD.
The second project envisages reallocation of 1.4 billion AMD from
the sphere of out-of hospital services to in-hospital services.
RA PRIME MINISTER TIGRAN SARGSYAN RECEIVED CHARLES LONSDALE, AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY AND PLENIPOTENTIARY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Mond ay, 11 May 2009
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received Charles Lonsdale, Ambassador
Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland, and British Council’s Armenia Office
Director Arevik Saribekyan.
Ambassador Charles Lonsdale presented the EU Skills program,
co-financed by British Council’s Armenia Office and the British
Embassy in Armenia, seeking to exchange know-how and improve European
integration-related skills among public sector officers. The program
is implemented simultaneously in all 3 South Caucasian countries –
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia – and is aimed at ensuring compliance with
the obligations assumed under the European Neighborhood Policy. The
program start-up will be followed by a needs assessment stage for which
the British side expects to be supported by the government of Armenia.
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan noted that the program is very
interesting with its well selected targets.
The program features training provided by corresponding experts invited
from Europe inclusive of the United Kingdom. In line with a preliminary
arrangement reached with stakeholder representatives, priority will be
given to public governance, report drafting, monitoring and evaluation
skills, as well as to public relations and media management.
ARMENIAN LEADER SAYS MEETING WITH TURKISH COUNTERPART "USEFUL"
Second Channel
May 8 2009
Armenia
[Presenter] [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan also met with Turkish
President Abdullah Gul in Prague. This was the second one after the
meeting in Yerevan [in September 2008.] The leaders of the two states
have positively assessed the Prague meeting and decided to respect
all previous agreements and move forward in the direction of settling
Armenian-Turkish relations without preconditions and in reasonable
periods of [time].
[Correspondent reports over video of the meeting] Past midnight
by Yerevan’s time [past 1900 gmt] and at 2230 by Prague’s time
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul
arrived at the Mandarin hotel, where the meeting of the Armenian and
Turkish presidents was planned. This is the second meeting of the
presidents after Gul was in Yerevan in September [2008] at Sargsyan’s
invitation. The foreign ministers of the two countries also took part
in this meeting. After the meeting the sides positively assessed the
Prague meeting and said that an agreement was achieved to respect all
previously achieved agreements aiming to move forward Armenian-Turkish
relations without preconditions and in reasonable periods of time.
[Sargsyan speaking in Armenian to journalists] Useful – we agreed to
respect our agreements.
[Two unidentified journalists speaking in Armenian] What are those
agreements? Are there preconditions?
[Sargsyan speaking in Armenian to journalists] It is excluded that
there be any preconditions, it is simply excluded.
WAS BABAYAN THE "SYMBOL"?
A1+
07:02 pm | May 07, 2009
Politics
Former commander of the NKR defense army Samvel Babayan truly believes
that the NKR has ceased to be a military-political unit and factor
in the region and is out of the peace talks only after it was decided
to take Samvel Babayan out of the game back in 1999.
Was Babayan left out of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks with the
decision by Robert Kocharyan? Does this mean that Babayan is accusing
Kocharyan? In response to that Babayan said:
"I repeat: we haven’t had any problems with Robert Kocharyan. If we
take a look back, we will see that in 1999, Robert Kocharyan was in a
worse situation than me. Robert Kocharyan couldn’t have done anything
back then."
Then who do you mean?
"Do you want me to spell out names? Just take a look at the list of
securtiy council officials on December 15, 1999 and you will see
the names. There are also current opposition members who had set
the issue to remove Samvel Babayan so they could have power. Now
they are standing on the side and screaming. There were 15 people,
but you know better than I do how Robert Kocharyan was."
Samvel Babayan also touched upon concessions in the NKR conflict. He
stated that the people of Karabakh will not agree to any concession and
that the conflict can’t be resolved without the consent of the people
of Karabakh. Samvel Babayan claimed that the liberated territories
can’t be given because there is more wealth there than the oil in
the Caspian basin.
Samvel Babayan doesn’t consider the Sargsyan-Aliev meeting pivotal
because all talks are nonsensical as long as Aliev hasn’t come to
grips with the fact that Karabakh cannot be part of Azerbaijan.
Babayan also stated that Artsakh is a part of Armenia and even if the
Armenian people concede Karabakh and the liberated lands, there will
be no right to go on living.
As for Turkish-Armenian relations, Samvel Babayan believes that
Turkey will put an end to the negotiations and the proclamation
signed in Switzerland a day before the genocide commemoration was
not by chance. According to the former Karabakh army commander, that
was to the benefit of Turkey because it did not want to hear the word
genocide pronounced.
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM OF ARTISTS ‘GENDER TROUBLE: PLATFORMS’ IN YEREVAN
ArmInfo
2009-05-08 12:30:00
ArmInfo. International symposium of artists ‘Gender trouble: platforms’
is opening in Yerevan.
As organizer of the project, artist Susanna Gyulamiryan said at today’s
press-conference, participants from the USA, Finland, Turkey, Germany
and Iran have already arrived in Yerevan. Armenia will be represented
by Arevik Arevshatyan and Narine Zolyan. All of them will present how
they see the gender problem in the light of modern art: video-art,
performance and installation. ‘It is very much important participants
in the event and the guests will get an opportunity to communicate
with each other’, – Gyulamiryan said and added it is not accidental
that major part of participants in the symposium are women. ‘It means
that women are again concerned about the gender problem more than men’,
– she said.
‘Gender trouble: platforms’ symposium will ;ast till 12 May in
‘The Club’.
ACP GUIDED BY THE STRICTEST REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW IN TEGHUT PROJECT
ArmInfo
2009-05-07 15:12:00
ArmInfo. When calculating the environmental damage as a consequence
of implementation of the project on development of the Teghut
copper-molybdenum deposit, the Armenian Copper Project (ACP) was
guided by the strictest requirements of the law, even if they didn’t
directly concern the project.
ACP official representative made such statement when commenting on
ArmInfo’s article entitled "SOS Teghut holds a protest action in
front of VTB Bank (Armenia) against crediting the Teghut project".
Official representative of ACP disagrees with the position of
ecologists, who point out that the environmental risks in the ACP
project submitted for consideration of Government are marked down for
several times, and development of the Teghut deposit runs counter to
Armenia’s legislation and international conventions. Concerning this,
ACP representative said that representatives of some NGOs came out with
similar accusations in their speeches earlier as well. Such opinions
were discussed at various public hearings where the representatives
of the Armenian Copper Program CJSC gave irrefragable answers to the
questions on this problem.
If the project on development of the Teghut copper-molybdenum
deposit really contained any violations of the Armenian legislation or
international conventions, the authors of the critical statements would
have mentioned specific points in the project and the company’s actions
which violate specific requirements of specific laws. "Instead, we deal
with abstract ungrounded declarations about violations. Actually, when
calculating the environmental damage as a consequence of implementation
of the project on development of the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit,
the company was guided by the strictest requirements of the law,
even if they didn’t directly concern the project. Any violations of
the Armenian legislation, Armenian Constitution or international
conventions ratified by Armenia are out of the question",- the
statement of ACP says.
DEFENSE MINISTRY OF ARMENIA OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCES OF REFUSAL FROM PARTICIPATION IN NATO EXERCISES IN GEORGIA
ArmInfo
2009-05-06 10:59:00
Defense Ministry of Armenia has officially informed of refusal from
participation in NATO exercises in Georgia.
According to the brief message placed on the website of Armenia’s
Defense Ministry last night, Armenia will not take part in the
exercises ‘based on the developed circumstances’.
To recall, a number of states have already refused from participation
in NATO exercises in Georgia which start today.
RECONSTRUCTION WORKS OF G. NZHDEH BRIDGE INTENDED TO BE FINISHED IN OCTOBER
ARMENPRESS
MAY 5, 2009
YEREVAN
Reconstruction works of Yerevan Garegin Nzhdeh Bridge are intended
to be finished in October this year.
Head of the office of implementation of the programs of Yerevan
municipality Robert Harutyunian told Armenpress that 1 billion 860
million drams are intended to be released from the state budget for
that aim. Already 200 million drams have been spent on the works
which kicked off from March.
According to this year’s program only G. Nzhdeh Bridge will be
reconstructed in Yerevan.
On the initiative of the municipality all the bridges in Yerevan will
this year be decorated with flowers.
Interfax, Russia
April 30 2009
Armenia bans pork imports from Mexico, U.S., several European
countries
YEREVAN April 30
Armenia has imposed a temporary ban on imports of pork from countries
where swine flu cases have been registered, Agriculture Minister
Aramais Grigoryan said at a government session on Thursday.
The ban applies to pork and pork products from Mexico, the U.S. and
several European countries.
The import ban will not cause shortages as Armenia produces enough
pork and poultry to meet domestic demand, he said.
Health Minister Arutyun Kushkyan said strict measures to safeguard
public health have been introduced at the nation’s airports and border
crossings and that Armenia has sufficient stocks of medicines. Within
days scanners that indicate the body temperatures of passengers will
be installed at airports, he said.
Armenia mainly imports pork from the U.S., Canada and Brazil.