Author: Kajoyan Gevork

RICHARD TAXY : UN VOYAGE EPROUVANT
Jean Eckian

armenews.com
jeudi 18 octobre 2012

Ils etaient partis en bonne sante, ils sont revenus bronchiteux a
l’issue d’un voyage eprouvant de 6 jours, de Paris a Erevan.

Bernard Ganimian, Alexandre Halladjian, Patrick Otamian, Richard
Taxy et Jean Louis Tapol ne regrettent pas une seconde le voyage
qui les a menes a Erevan pour livrer un 4X4 et du materiel medical
au Centre Puynik dedie aux enfants et adultes handicapes, malgre une
nuit blanche, une meteo execrable et une route a l’avenant. 3950 km
qu’ils s’etaient imposes en 6 jours, et deux nuits en Armenie qui ne
leur ont pas permis d’aller a la decouverte du pays, sinon d’observer
dans la capitale des images et faits assez choquants auxquels ils ne
s’attendaient pas…

De la traversee de la Turquie, Richard Taxy note que : “si un jour
il vous prend l’envie de passer en voiture par Istanbul sachez que
vous allez vivre un enfer. D’abord des embouteillages monstrueux. Puis
arrive au peage de l’autoroute qui vous mène de l’autre côte en Asie,
on vous annonce qu’il faut une carte speciale qu’on ne trouve que dans
une banque bien precise. Donc on ressort en quete de cette putain de
banque. Rien que ca c’est 2h. Puis la queue a cette banque, on recupère
cette carte et re-embouteillage pour atteindre le peage, le tout nous
a coûte 5h30. Ha oui j’oubliais… sur l’autoroute embouteillee vous
trouvez au milieu des voitures, des vendeurs a la sauvette qui vendent
tout et n’importe quoi. Et enfin pour votre gouverne, l’essence est
a plus de 2 euros (les 3/4 des voitures turques sont au gaz). Bravo
le gouvernement ! Ca ne donne pas vraiment envie aux touristes de
traverser votre doux et beau pays avec leurs voitures.”

Epuisee, mais satisfaite de la mission accomplie, l’equipee deconseille
fortement de se rendre en Armenie par voie terrestre.

jeudi 18 octobre 2012, Jean Eckian ©armenews.com

ZVARTNOTS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AGAIN GROUNDS FLIGHTS OF ARMENIA’S NATIONAL CARRIER

news.am
October 18, 2012 | 11:56

YEREVAN. – As of Thursday 11am, Armenian capital city Yerevan’s
ZvartnotsInternationalAirport has again suspended its services rendered
to Armavia Airline Company-which is Armenia’s national carrier-the
airport’s press secretary Gevorg Abrahamyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

He noted that the resumption of Armavia flights will depend solely
on the company, as to when it will take measures to reduce its debt
to the airport.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, the Zvartnots International
Airport suspended its services rendered to the flights of Armavia
on Wednesday, but the company transferred AMD 90 million (approx. $
221,575) to Zvartnots and, as a result, the flights resumed. Armavia’s
total debt is $3,360,000, which is one million dollars more than
the limit.

To note, Armavia’s flights were grounded in med-September as well,
but, subsequently, the Armenia International Airports Company-which
owns ZvartnotsInternationalAirport-had resumed Armavia’s flights
because arrangement was made on the payment of debts.

The conflict between Armavia and ArmeniaInternationalAirports continues
for several months. Zvartnots had suspended Armavia’s flights a
number of times, and for exceeding the limit for outstanding debts,
but the parties had come to an agreement as a result of negotiations.

VOTE 2013: TSARUKYAN MEETING WITH WESTERN DIPLOMATS SEEN AS PART OF ELECTION PREPARATIONS
By Siranuysh Gevorgyan

ArmeniaNow
18.10.12 | 10:16

The Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) has not disclosed details of a
meeting that recently took place between its leader Gagik Tsarukyan and
a number of diplomats accredited in Yerevan as well as representatives
of international organizations.

Tsarukyan’s spokesperson Iveta Tonoyan only said that after a
reception held on Tuesday on the occasion of the 135th anniversary
of the Ararat brandy factory the PAP leader and certain ambassadors
met “behind closed doors”. She neither confirmed nor denied that the
meeting discussed the issue of Vartan Oskanian, a PAP lawmaker and
former Minister of Foreign Affairs who was recently stripped of his
parliamentary immunity to be prosecuted for alleged money laundering.

Earlier this month Tsarukyan held a separate meeting with United
States Ambassador John Heffern. Some details of that meeting were not
kept secret, however, and the U.S. envoy shortly expressed his fresh
concern over the Oskanian case, saying that it “appears to represent
a selective application of Armenian law.”

“Moreover, the timing of these events in relation to the election
schedule is troubling,” Heffern said through an online video blog
entry on October 10.

The statement by Heffern did not go down well with Armenia’s ruling
Republican Party, whose spokesman hinted that it might be an instance
of meddling in the nation’s domestic affairs. The Republicans have
not officially reacted yet to the reported meeting between Tsarukyan
and Western diplomats, perhaps also due to the absence of public
statements after it.

Meanwhile, political and election technologies expert Armen Badalyan
regards the latest meeting between the PAP leader and Western diplomats
within the context of the upcoming presidential elections.

He says the Western powers, whose influence in Armenia will be greater
as compared to the previous elections, are trying to influence the
position of one of Armenia’s influential political parties from a
number of aspects.

“The West cannot remain indifferent to the PAP circumstance and
avoiding discussing quite a few issues with it, especially that
the second candidate on the PAP’s election list [at last May’s
parliamentary elections] is a politician who does not rule out
his running for president at the next election,” the expert told
ArmeniaNow.

“This is, of course, up to the PAP to decide, but it certainly cannot
leave the Western diplomats indifferent as they have quite a lot
of questions to specify in advance. In particular, what attitude
the PAP has towards the European Union, Armenia-NATO, Armenia-EU,
Armenia-Russian relations, the Karabakh issue. I suppose they could
also discuss whether the PAP would or would not support the incumbent
president during the next election.”

In Badalyan’s opinion, the West has not yet clarified its “stake”
in the February presidential election in Armenia.

“Just like Russia, the West, too, is capable of having significant
influence on the outcome of the presidential election in Armenia. They
can simply designate a president, of course, keeping the formal
voting part by the public in place. And it is not ruled out that
the West may decide to replace Serzh Sargsyan with Vartan Oskanian,
as the current president has not introduced any Western value system
factor in Armenia, he has failed to provide a liberal economic field
or liberalize television channels, he hasn’t fought against corruption,
etc.,” said Badalyan.

In a recent media interview Oskanian said he believed the PAP should
contest the next presidential election with its own candidate and did
not rule out that he might be such a candidate if Tsarukyan decided
he did not want to run for president himself.

Until today Tsarukyan has not clarified his position regarding whether
he will support President Sargsyan’s reelection bid, as he pledged
to do in a coalition memorandum in February 2011, or will prefer his
party’s fielding its own candidate.

Citing its sources, the Yerevan-based daily, 168 Zham, writes that at
a recent meeting with top party representatives Tsarukyan excluded
that the PAP could nominate Oskanian as a candidate in the 2013
presidential election. According to the newspaper, Tsarukyan said
that if the party nominated a candidate that could only be he himself.

Analysts, however, consider it unlikely that the millionaire
businessman will eventually decide to join the fray.

AZERBAIJAN SAYS CAPABLE OF DEFENDING OIL INFRASTRUCTURE

Turan news agency
Oct 16 2012
Azerbaijan

16 October: The Armenian armed forces consider long-range missile a
priority of military preparation and if need be, it will carry out
a strike on an enemy’s economic facilities, in particular, gas and
oil pipelines, the head of the Operative Department of the General
Headquarters of the Armenian armed forces, Maj-Gen Artak Davtyan,
told journalists yesterday. He said Armenia’s military hardware can
carry out strikes at a distance of 300 km and more.

[Passage omitted: details]

In response to these statements, the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry press
secretary has said: “Armenia’s bravery does not come from itself but
from outside. As for the oil and gas infrastructure, Azerbaijan uses
it jointly with leading powers of the world and their companies.

In addition, there are the Air Defence Force and means needed to defend
this infrastructure. At the same time, the enemy should remember that
Azerbaijan’s new missile systems can reach any strategic facility
in Armenia.”

We should note that Armenia has old Soviet short-range Scud missiles
and also Chinese-made Typhoon volley fire systems. Military experts
note that these types of weapons are not high-precision weapons and
are unlikely to be capable of carrying out aimed strikes.

Azerbaijan has Tochka-U missile systems and a number of others
which will be able to cover all of Armenia and Karabakh [Karabakh
is Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated enclave which broke away in the
early 1990s].

[BBCM note: Mediamax news agency on 15 October quoted Davtyan as
saying that the Armenian armed forces can deliver missile strikes at
a range of more than 300 km when fighting a potential rival. He said
that during a strategic command and staff exercise on 1-13 October,
missile strikes targeted an (imaginary) opponent’s military facilities
as well as economic infrastructure, oil and gas industry facilities
in particular, Mediamax said.

[translated from Russian]

FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO AZERBAIJAN: HISTORIANS SHOULD DEAL WITH THE ISSUES ON GENOCIDE

MilAz.info
Oct 17 2012
Azerbaijan

“I am not an expert on assessment of genocide, but I think what
happened in Khojaly is a tragedy”

“I think that historians should deal with the issues on genocide. It
is more important to carry out a dialogue”, Ambassador of France to
Azerbaijan Pascal Meunier said while commenting on the possibility
of discussion of the bill criminalizing Armenian genocide denial at
the French parliament, APA reports.

Ambassador said the Constitutional Court of France passed a decision,
which says that the bill runs contrary to the Main Law of the country.

“As you know, the Constitutional Court passed a decision that the
abovementioned bill runs contrary to the Main Law of the country. So,
the problem has been solved. In order to adopt this bill, the
Constitution must be changed”, he said.

Commenting on the happenings in Khojaly, Ambassador regarded as them a
tragedy and called on the conflicting parties to carry out a dialogue
to find a solution.

“As regards Khojaly, I know that Azerbaijan thinks genocide was
committed there. I am not an expert on assessment of genocide, but I
think what happened in Khojaly is a tragedy. My first contact with
Azerbaijan was during my participation in the seminar on Khojaly
organized at the French National Assembly in Paris. When I came to
Baku, I visited Martyrs’ Alley. I see that Karabakh problem has hit
a number of families. But Azerbaijan and Armenia should start a new
dialogue, as France and Germany, which once waged war, did. Now these
countries are not fighting, they are competing in economy”, he said.

ARMENIAN WINE EXPORT NOT TO SUFFER FROM “GEORGIA-CRADLE OF WINE” BRAND REGISTRATION – COMPANY HEAD

/ARKA/
17 October, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, October 17. /ARKA/. Even though Georgia registers its wine
in the EU under the brand “Georgia- Cradle of Wine”, Armenia’s wine
export will not suffer from that, Vedi Alco wine company head Manvel
Ghazaryan implies.

In March 2012, the European Union registered Georgian wines under
“Georgia-Cradle of Wine” brand. Some Armenian experts think Armenia
should boycott this decision, as it influences the export of the
Armenian production negatively.

“I don’t think it can create some obstacles for the export of the
Armenian wines. We do not have such huge volumes of export to Europe
so as to be concerned about this decision,” Ghazaryan told ARKA.

Along with this, according to him, such decision is pretty subjective.

“It is a little bit exaggeration to say that Georgia is a cradle
of wine. The whole region, I mean the territory from the Caucasian
mountains, can be called so. We can say that Armenia is a cradle of
wine, and the Georgians may say it is Georgia. There is no need to
monopolize it,” he said.

Ghazaryan added that the problem of the Armenian wines is that
they are not so popular as the Georgian production. Nevertheless,
according to some leading specialists, Armenian wines, such as Areni
and Vernashen if not better, but are not worse than Georgian ones too.

“It means we have potential, we just need to enter new markets,”
he said.

Vedi Alco CJSC unites Getap and Vedi wine factories, founded in
1938 and 1956 respectively. The company also grows grape on its
own territory of 150 hectares in Aragatsotn valley and foothills
of Armenia.

ZVARTNOTS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT RESUMES FLIGHTS OF ARMENIA’S NATIONAL CARRIER

news.am
October 17, 2012 | 17:01

YEREVAN. – Armenian capital city Yerevan’s
ZvartnotsInternationalAirport is resuming its services rendered
to Armavia Airline Company-which is Armenia’s national carrier-the
airport’s pres secretary Gevorg Abrahamyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

He informed that Armavia transferred AMD 90 million (approx. $ 221,575)
to Zvartnots, and therefore its flights will be served until Thursday
11am, after which it will become clear as to whether the flights will
continue. To note, Armavia’s total debt is $3,360,000, which is one
million dollars more than the limit.

Commenting on Armavia’s information provided to Armenian News-NEWS.am,
and according to which the grounding of the company’s flights is
linked with the emergence of a new shareholder in Armavia, Abrahamyan
noted: “We have no information as to whether or not there is a new
shareholder.” And he reconfirmed that the sole reason for suspending
Armavia’s flights is its accruing debts.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, the
ZvartnotsInternationalAirport once again suspended its services
rendered to the flights of Armavia Airline Company. According to our
information, the reason is again Armavia’s huge outstanding debts to
the airport.

To note, Armavia’s flights were grounded in med-September as well,
but, subsequently, the Armenia International Airports Company-which
owns ZvartnotsInternationalAirport-had resumed Armavia’s flights
because arrangement was made on the payment of debts.

The conflict between Armavia and ArmeniaInternationalAirports continues
for several months. Zvartnots had suspended Armavia’s flights a
number of times, and for exceeding the limit for outstanding debts,
but the parties had come to an agreement as a result of negotiations.

WHAT IS ISHKHAN ZAKARYAN LOOKING FOR IN THE CITY HALL?

2012-10-17 20:03:11

According to reliable sources of Lurer.com, the term of checking works
by Control Chamber launched on September 13 have been prolonged for
12 days. According to the corresponding law, checking works last for
24 weekdays, which can be prolonged for 12 more days.

Note, Haykakan Zhamanak daily newspaper reported, that on September
28 Yerevan~Rs mayor Taron Margaryan met Chairman of Control Chamber
Ishkhan Zakaryan. According to the information of Lurer.com, the mayor
was not alone, his assistant was accompanying him, which by the way,
is Ishkhan Zakaryan~Rs son.

Note also, that chechkings are realized by Martin Kyurkchyan, head of
the 6th department, of CC, which is Ishkhan Zakaryan~Rs brother-in-law.

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Oct 16 2012

Armenian civilian plane grounded

ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News
Sevil Küçükkoþum

An Aleppo-bound Armenian civilian plane was grounded for inspection
in the eastern province of Erzurum as Turkey increases pressure
against Syria. DHA Photo

An Aleppo-bound Armenian civilian plane was grounded for inspection
in the eastern province of Erzurum on Oct. 15, as Turkey increases
pressure against Syria, preventing its airspace from being used to
supply the Syrian military.

Armenia notified Turkish authorities of its willingness to send
humanitarian aid to Syria on Oct. 10, and the permission for safe
conduct was granted only on the condition of a technical landing, an
official from the Turkish Foreign Ministry told Hürriyet Daily News.

The plane was permitted to depart yesterday afternoon after its cargo
declaration was verified, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arýnç told
reporters. “That is to say, we’re very serious on this issue. We are
following closely, and we are very diligent on our duty,” he said. “We
won’t avert humanitarian aid planes, but we’ll always perform the same
practice for flights aboard which the cargo is not clear,” Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu told reporters in Baku.

Case-by-case basis
The grounding of the plane does not represent the implementation of a
general decision to ground Syria-bound planes, and decisions to make
technical inspections are made on a case-by-case basis, officials told
the Daily News.

Asked if Turkey is applying a practice of inspection generally to all
Syria-bound planes flying through Turkish airspace, a Turkish diplomat
said “It is early to interpret that way,” implying that decisions to
ground foreign planes are made as needed. Turkish authorities and the
Turkish media tried to “make a show out of [the grounding of the
plane]” despite the previous agreement, Air Armenia Director Arsen
Avetisyan told news.am. The cargo aboard the Armenian jet included 14
tons of food.
October/16/2012

Colombia Reports
Oct 16 2012

Shakira causes a stir after flag blunder .

Tuesday, 16 October 2012 13:53 Simon Willis

Shakira caused a shock at an international soccer tournament in
Azerbaijan Saturday as she mistakenly held up a Colombian flag upside
down giving the impression it was the flag from Armenia, a country
which has had a long-standing feud with the host nation.

The Colombian singer took to the stage before the FIFA Under 17
Women’s World Cup Final between France and Korea in Baku, Azerbaijan,
for the first time since the announcement of her pregnancy.

She was dressed all in black and displaying what she thought was her
native Colombian flag. However the flag, turned backwards, represents
Armenia due to it having the same colors – red, yellow and blue – as
Colombia.

The mistake may have gone un-reported or even un-noticed had it not
represented a country which has maintained a religious and ethnic
conflict with Azerbaijan for just under a decade.

It is not the first time the pop star has dropped a clanger in public.
Earlier in the year she sang the incorrect lyrics to the Colombian
national anthem at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena.

The blunder sent shock-waves throughout social media sites like
Twitter and Facebook, with many Colombians criticizing the artist for
not spending enough time in her homeland.

Time will only tell if this latest faux pas will bring an equivalent
response in Armenia and Azerbaijan.