Author: Kalantarian Kevo

“INSTEAD OF FIGHTING AGAINST HUNGER, THEY ARE FIGHTING AGAINST THE HUNGRY” (VIDEO)

18:07 | February 12,2015 | Politics

There is anarchy in the RA, thinks Armenian National Congress Party
(HAK) secretary. As there is still a lot of time before the NA session,
the acts of violence happening out of the NA were discussed during
the HAK regular session.

Aram Manukyan was angry about the actions of policemen against the
cookie thief and the parents of the soldiers, who died in peacetime,
“Instead of fighting against hunger, these people are fighting against
the hungry, instead of fighting for reducing the murders, they are
fighting against the parents of the killed soldiers. It is a disgrace.

Instead of fighting against terrorists, criminals, they are fighting
against the people who are the victims of that crime. It is madness,
nothing like this has ever happened.”

Whether HAK will also join its partner of troika- Prosperous
Armenia Party (BHK), which is discussing the issue of boycotting
the NA sessions until the sinners of beating Artak Khachatryan,
the member of the Political Council of BHK Party, will be punished,
“We haven’t decided yet. We will discuss it. I think it must be a
little general, as it doesn’t apply to only this incident, what I am
saying is a system.”

Aram Manukyan thinks that the system is in a deep crisis. He thinks
that today the extraordinary discussion on the Management crisis
presented by their party has become urgent.

LIBRARY TO BE NAMED AFTER WILLIAM SAROYAN IN TURKEY

17:24, 12 February, 2015

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 12, ARMENPRESS. A library in Bitlis will be named
after the prominent Armenian-American author William Saroyan.

Journalist and writer Ahmet Tuglar is the author of the project. As
reports “Armenpress”, the Istanbul-based Armenian periodical Agos
stated about this.

Among other things, Tuglar noted that the idea of opening a library
first came to his mind, when a decision was made in December of
the previous year to name one of the streets in Bitlis after the
Armenian-American author.

William Saroyan was an American – Armenian author. The setting of many
of his stories and plays was Fresno, California (sometimes under a
fictional name), the center of Armenian-American life in California
and where he grew up.

Saroyan was born in Fresno, California to Armenian immigrants from
Bitlis, Turkey. At the age of three, after his father’s death, Saroyan
was placed in the orphanage in Oakland, California, together with his
brother and sister, an experience he later described in his writing.

Five years later, the family reunited in Fresno, where his mother,
Takoohi, secured work at a cannery. He continued his education on
his own, supporting himself by taking odd jobs, such as working as
an office manager for the San Francisco Telegraph Company.

Saroyan decided to become a writer after his mother showed him some
of his father’s writings. A few of his early short articles were
published in Overland Monthly. His first stories appeared in the
1930s. Among these was “The Broken Wheel”, written under the name
Sirak Goryan and published in the Armenian journal Hairenik in 1933.

Many of Saroyan’s stories were based on his childhood experiences
among the Armenian-American fruit growers of the San Joaquin Valley,
or dealt with the rootlessness of the immigrant. The short story
collection My Name is Aram (1940), an international bestseller, was
about a young boy and the colorful characters of his immigrant family.

It has been translated into many languages.

GEOLOGIST SURE NO OIL TO BE FOUND IN LAKE SEVAN BASIN

14:41 February 11, 2015

EcoLur

Hrachya Avagyan, Dr. in Geological Sciences, is sure that no oil will
be prospected in Lake Sevan basin. “The whole basin of Lake Sevan has
lava origin. I don’t think an oil mine will be prospected. Still in the
Soviet period 108-100 wells were drilled to find oil in the territory
of Armenia, but nothing was mentioned about Lake Sevan basin. It’s
senseless to speak about oil. I’m sure they won’t find it,” said
Hrachya Avagyan in his interview with EcoLur.

As it’s known “Blackstars Energy Armenia” LLC is going to prospect oil
and gas in the areas of Hayravanq, Tsaghkashen and Noradus villages
dealing with fishing in the basin of Lake Sevan. The public hearings
of the project submitted by the company were held in Gavar Town on
30 January. Only Tsaghkashen community was aware of the hearings out
of all project affected communities: two representatives of the rural
municipality took part in the hearings.

“It would be good, if they prospect oil and gas, it will save our
village,” Tsaghkazhen Community Head Seryozha Sargsyan said in his
interview with EcoLur. Noradus Community Head Murad Harutyunyan
also didn’t oppose to prospecting oil in the area of its community,
“Is there anything bad? We will be a rich village.” Only Hayravanq
Community Head David Badoyan was concerned, “It won’t be desirable
not to have it in the plough land areas.”

LATIN AMERICAN COCAINE SMUGGLERS BUSTED IN YEREVAN: DRUGS WERE HEADED TO TURKEY

15:25, February 12, 2015

Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) says it has uncovered a Latin
American drug ring attempting to smuggle cocaine to Turkey via Armenia.

The NSS says that the drugs were hidden in cargo flights from Latin
America to Armenia and then picked up by Bulgarian and Lebanese agents
who would then send the drugs, via air and land, across the border
into Turkey.

The NSS claims it intercepted 2.7 kilos of cocaine on January 27 on
a cargo flight from San Paolo to Yerevan, via Abu Dhabi and 2.6 kilos
on February 9 on the same flight.

Today, the NSS says it intercepted a cache of 4.8 kilos of cocaine in
the possession of two Bulgarian citizens of Arab descent at Yerevan’s
Zvartnots Airport. The two were passengers on a flight to Istanbul.

CENTRAL BANK FORCED TO TAKE STEP THAT’LL MAKE THINGS WORSE

Roza Hovhannisyan, Reporter
Business – 12 February 2015, 13:01

The Central Bank has set a refinancing rate at 10.5%, which will make
the situation in the Armenian economy worse, the economist Vardan
Bostanjyan told Lragir.am, commenting on the Central Bank’s decision.

On February 10 the Central Bank increased the rate of refinancing by
1%, setting the rate at 10.5%. The reason for such a decision was the
inflation rate in January which exceeded the rate target. According
to the clarification of the Central Bank, in January 2015 inflation
was at 2.5%, 12-month inflation by the end of January was 4.3%,
being very close to the rate target.

The Central Bank finds that over the next months the 12-month inflation
will rise a little.

“A 10.5% refinancing rate is an obviously negative indicator but the
monetary authorities are not doing it for their pleasure. The bad
scenario of current inflation in the country, as well as instability
in the financial market supposes and requires increase of the interest
rate. The monetary authorities have no alternative to this step but
this is a very negative phenomenon for the economy,” Bostanjyan says.

A raised rate of refinancing means that banks will increase interest
rate on loans.

Vardan Bostanjyan notes that the Armenian economy is facing lack of
investments, SMEs are paralyzed, about 10,000 SMEs have closed.

“At the moment, statistics indicates that inflation is higher than
the projected rate. In reality, it is a bigger number than official
statistics states. In this situation the monetary authorities were
forced to increase the refinancing rate,” he noted.

The economist thinks the efforts of the organizations in charge of
the financial sector are not enough, a coordinated economic policy
must be conducted.

“Without coordination we should simply expect the negative consequences
what we are seeing now,” Vardan Bostanjyan said.

Note that according to the NSS, in January 2015 inflation reported
in the consumer market was at 2.5% compared with December 2014 due
to a 4.5% increase of food prices. In January prices of almost all
kinds of food increased compared with January 2014. Mostly the prices
of necessity goods increased. Prices of bread increased by 10.4%
compared with last January.

TSARUKYAN IN MOSCOW: PAP LEADER MEETS WITH POLITICAL FORCES IN RUSSIA

Politics | 12.02.15 | 14:55

GOHAR ABRAHAMYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter

A two-day visit to Moscow by Prosperous Armenia Party leader
GagikTsarukyan in which the powerful businessman met with political
leaders in the Russian capital has raised speculation in Yerevan over
the oppositional party’s intentions at home.

PAP – which calls itself the “alternative” party – is the powerbase
of the “troika”, which including Armenian Revolutionary Federation
and Heritage parties, form the core of Armenia’s political opposition.

Last week,Tsarukyan called a conference during which he said that
the country needs early elections.

The massage spread by the conference secretariat summarized
the results, and among other questions, it addressed President
SerzhSargsyan’s initiative of constitutional changes which was
considered unacceptable and it said that if “the government,
nevertheless, does not listen to the social and political opinion and
turns to a referendum, then that day must be declared a NO referendum
day and start 24-hour national protests, with a demand for a change
of government.”

StepanSafaryan, a political analyst, the founder and president of the
Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs, thinks that
the very question of constitutional reforms took Tsarukyan to Russia.

“March is symbolic in the sense that SerzhSragsyan’s final position on
constitutional reforms will be announced. In Autumn, GagikTsarukyan
probably blocked the protest movement, because he considered the
delay of adopting constitutional reforms a victory of the troika,” the
political analyst said. He added that now when the ruling Republican
Party of Armenia (RPA) is discussing the question of reforms at its
Supreme Body meetings and it seems like an answer will soon be heard,
and junior Republicans are hinted about constitutional changes, another
mobilization of forces is taking place in the non-political field.

“The PAP takes a few steps, the first being the conference as an
act of unifying the opposition, the second – the hint about early
elections, and the third – the visit to Russia and meetings,” the
political analyst said.

NOTHING NEW: ARF MEMBER SAYS TER-PETROSYAN REMAINS TRUE TO FAILED POLICY ON TURKEY

Genocide | 12.02.15 | 10:39

GOHAR ABRAHAMYAN
ArmeniaNow reporter

related news

Ter-Petrosyan: ‘Genocide Centennial Declaration’ to affect
Armenian-Turkish normalization

A chief foreign-policy spokesman for the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF) sees nothing new in the criticism of Armenia’s
first president regarding the Pan-Armenian Declaration on the 100th
Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. According to Giro Manoyan,
Turkey’s president would readily sign under many of the thoughts
voiced by Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

Ter-Petrosyan, who led Armenia as its first president in 1991-1998
and today heads the opposition Armenian National Congress party,
voiced criticism regarding some points and aspects of the Declaration
in an article published by the Ilur.am news website and the Chorrord
Ishkhanutyun newspaper on Wednesday.

His main criticism concerned the paragraph of the 12-point Declaration
that “expresses the united will of Armenia and the Armenian people
to achieve worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the
elimination of the consequences of the Genocide, preparing to this
end a file of legal claims as a point of departure in the process of
restoring individual, communal and pan-Armenian rights and legitimate
interests.”

Ter-Petrosyan suggested that the policy of claims will “extremely
complicate and, for a long time, suspend Armenian-Turkish
normalization, a process that is very necessary for Armenia’s future.”

Giro Manoyan, Director of the International Secretariat of the ARF
Bureau in Yerevan, says that although Ter-Petrosyan’s policy in the
matter of relations with Turkey had failed to produce the expected
result, he still remains committed to his stance and continues to
insist that Armenia should continue that way.

“He says that no one can speak on behalf of all Armenians. It means
that we can never have a pan-Armenian view and present anything as
a pan-Armenian view. This is also his [Ter-Petrosyan’s] approach to
seeing Armenians as separate parts,” Manoyan told ArmeniaNow.

To Manoyan it is also unclear why Ter-Petrosyan thinks that by
supporting representatives of Turkish society who recognize the
Armenian Genocide the Declaration puts them in danger.

“In other words, according to Ter-Petrosyan, we have nothing to do,
everything is up to Turkey to decide. It is Turkish nationalists who
should be deciding, and we have to follow obediently,” he commented.

“There is nothing new in what he [Ter-Petrosyan] said, just as there
is nothing new in the Declaration. When Ter-Petrosyan says that it is
a “fruitless” document, if it is really so, it is regretful that he
wasted his time for writing an article about it. But, nonetheless,
he expressed his view, a view that has proved wrong based on his
own experience.”

Vartan Oskanian, who served as Armenia’s foreign minister in
1998-2008, also made a comment following Ter-Petrosyan’s article. He,
in particular, pointed out contradictions between the Declaration
and the Turkish-Armenian protocols that were signed in 2009 and are
now still on the “big agenda” of the Armenian parliament.

“The contradictions between the two documents, to put it mildly,
weaken the affirmation in the Declaration of the issues related to
the Armenian Genocide recognition and legal claims regardless of what
we think about the expedience of raising them in the Declaration,”
Oskanian wrote on his Facebook account.

Ara Papyan, a lawyer, historian and diplomat who heads a Yerevan-based
think tank, Modus Vivendi, also considers the Declaration to be
realistic only if the Armenian parliament revokes the Zurich protocols.

ARMENIA USES NOT ALL OPPORTUNITIES IN COOPERATION WITH IRAN

YEREVAN, February 11. /ARKA/. Armenia doesn’t use all the opportunities
of economic cooperation with Iran, Armen Martirosyan, an MP from
Heritage opposition party, said Wednesday at a news conference.

He thinks the Armenian authorities don’t use economic capacity to its
full extent – they are only negotiating over construction of Meghri
Hydro Power Plant and Iran-Armenia railway, but both projects are
unlikely to be put into reality.

Martirosyan said.

He pointed out struggle against terrorism as another ground for
cooperation.

The opposition lawmaker also finds it important to develop relations
with Iraqi Kurdistan.

he said.

Relations between the two countries are quite friendly. Yerevan and
Tehran intend to build two hydro power plants on Arax River. Each of
these power plants is planned to generate 793 million kilowatt/hour
electric power every year.

Armenian and Iranian authorities were considering ways for construction
of a joint oil pipeline and a refinery, but the negotiations over
the matter were suspended.

The countries are also discussing an idea of construction of
North-South (Iran-Armenia) railway, which will be an alternative
transportation link for Armenia opening anot

PHOTO SHOWING SCENE OF DEPORTATION OF ERZURUM ARMENIANS PUBLISHED

17:06, 9 February, 2015

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The photo, which has been recently
published, depicts an episode of deportation of Erzurum Armenians
to Mesopotamia, near the village of Sushehir. The photo is made by
the Austrian biologist Victor Pitchman (1881-1956). By the order of
German Government, from 1914 until the end of the First World War,
Pitchman had organized Turkish mountain-shooter military units, at the
same time mapping the ongoing military operations in the Middle East
for the German General Staff. Traveling and carrying out collecting
works in the territory of Western Armenia he managed to take photos
of Armenians’ deportation scene.

As reports “Armenpress”, it is remarkable, that in the photos made by
V. Pitchman no men are seen in the deportation caravans, only women
and children. The majority of Armenian men were already killed.

The deportation of Armenian population of Erzurum started in July
1915. Historical sources and evidences of survivors prove the cruel
fate of Erzurum Armenians. 35-40 thousand Armenians were deported from
Erzurum and surrounding villages to Derjan, Erzincan, Sebastia (Sivas),
even to Der Zor desert. Very few of the deportees could survive.

Moreover, Armenians were slaughtered on the road of deportation;
men were shot to death, or killed by axe in groups; women were raped
and killed or died on the road from various diseases, thirst and
starvation; lonely and helpless children and weak were inevitably
condemned to death.

“They killed the women, children, and elderly people by burning them
to death, shearing, strangling the rivers, group shooting and rolling
them from the rocks to deep rifts. Starving and frosted people were
condemned to death through brutal torture.

Thousands of deported Armenians were dying on the way and epidemics
in deportation camps. The population of Erzurum and Bassen valleys –
women, children and elder people – were deported from their villages
and forced to reach Mesopotamia”.

Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter German Vice Consul in Erzurum in 1915

The source of photograph, Nature History Museum, Vienna, Austria

>From “100 Photographic Stories of the Armenian Genocide” book

ZHIRAYR SEFILYAN: GENERALS WERE FLATTERING SERZH SARGSYAN AND ARTHUR AGHABEKYAN WAS PRAISING SASHIK

15:01 | February 11,2015 | Politics

Artsakh President Bako Sahakyan has confessed that they have been
dreaming to join the Eurasian Economic Union for many years, Karabakh
war veteran Zhirayr Sefilyan told reporters in Yerevan on February 11.

“We were saddened to hear the words from a person who heads the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and for whom many people have shed their
blood. They were troubled that Armenia was able to accede to EEU
while Karabakh could not, and now they are looking for ways to fulfill
their dream,” said Zhirayr Sefilyan.

Before last month’s incident in Berdzor when scores of activists
representing the Founding Parliament opposition group were confronted
by NKR police as well as a group of plainclothes men during an
automobile march to Artsakh, Zhirayr Sefilyan met with senior officials
in Stepanakert. He says he was deeply disappointed with the meeting
which was attended by the Prosecutor General, Head of the National
Security Service and Deputy Minister of Artsakh.

During the meeting, Zhirayr Sefilyan and Emil Abrahamyan, another
member of the Founding Parliament, became convinced that they ‘are
dealing with a government that does not demonstrate an appropriate
position.’

“The generals sitting in front of us were flattering Serzh Sargsyan.

Deputy Prime Minister of NKR Arthur Aghabekyan was overtly praising
Sashik [Serzh Sargsyan’s brother],” said Mr Sefilyan.

He says the people in Artsakh have no connection with the January
31 violence.

“Many will try to use this incident and drive a wedge between Armenia
and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic but I would advise everyone to
avoid such attempts,” he said.

On January 31, scores of activists representing the Founding Parliament
opposition movement, a successor of the Pre-parliament pressure group,
organized an automobile march to Nagorno-Karabakh as part of their
campaign seeking a regime change in Armenia. Near Berdzor, they were
stopped by local police and a group of plainclothes men who forcefully
blocked their access to the territory of Karabakh.

A number of activists, including Jirayr Sefilyan, a Karabakh war
veteran and a former commander of the Shushi special detachment, were
beaten up during the incident. Also, some vehicles of the automobile
march were damaged.