Author: Kalantarian Kevo

Azerbaijani power propagates Islamic Radicalism

by David Stepanyan

ARMINFO
Thursday, February 6, 18:39

Azerbaijani power with a help of secret services has been propagating
Islamic Radicalism followed by repressions and arrest of religious
believers just on this basis, Azerbaijani political expert, Arif
Yunusov, told Arminfo correspondent, when commenting on the
information about the threat of terrorist groups.
‘

“For instance, immediately after raising of tension in the relations
of Azerbaijan with Iran, National Security Ministry immediately
revealed and arrested another group of “Iranian spies”. If the EU
adopts a resolution against the anti-democratic policy of the
Azerbaijani authorities, another “group of terrorists” is immediately
arrested. All these “spy-terrorists” will court-martialed secret and
the society will be only informed about the term of their sentence.
The young people living in Azerbaijan, which do not agree to the
policy conducted by the power and organize rallies, are dangerous for
the power. As for the radically tuned believers which fight in Syria
and other countries of the East, the authorities do not care of them”,
– he said.

Actually, no radical Islamic organization voiced any threats addressed
to Azerbaijan, he said and added that the information in mass media,
was fabricated by Baku. The expert is confident that Islamists
themselves openly publish their programmes at websites. Moreover, the
lexicon of “Islamists” also causes doubt and is similar to the lexicon
of atheists from National Security Ministry enhanced by the flag of
Azerbaijan which radical Islamists do not recognize.

“We have to understand that the Soviet-time has run away forever, and
the role of Islam will grow in our society, and the role of atheists
fall. One cannot stop this process. But the power which still thinks
by the old Soviet categories, can make only repressions. Meanwhile,
not all the religious believers in Azerbaijan have radical positions,
they are divided to Shiits and Sunits, and the majority of them are
far from politics. However, their presence causes fear of the
authorities, which scare the growth of the religion in the society.
For this reason, the authorities have started the campaign against the
salafits. They arrest them and do not let them enter mosques. So,
parallel to the growth of repressions, the number and activeness of
the moderate islamists transferring to the positions of radicalism is
growing”, – he concluded.

Young man’s severed arm sewn and will function normally

February 9, 00:01

The young man’s arm, which was severed and detached in an accident,
and then sewn in Yerevan hospital number 1 will function normally, but
this will take time. This forecast is given by the surgeons of the
patient Karo Simonyan, in an interview to the correspondent of NEWS.am
Medicine.

As we found out, the accident occurred on January 27 at a construction
site where Karo Simonyan’s arm was stuck between the elevator and the
wall, and then was cut off and fell down from the 11th floor. Rescuers
took him to the hospital during the duty of the assistant of the
department of plastic and reconstructive surgery, plastic surgeon
Abraham Danielyan. According to the doctor, the patient was lucky
enough to appear at the hospital right in time: only 1.5 hours after
the accident he was already in the operating room.

Operation, which was performed by on duty doctor Danielyan, Head of
the Department of Plastic Surgery of Yerevan State Medical University
Artavazd Sahakyan and several other specialists, lasted about 6.5
hours. A few hours later, the doctors discovered that the patient’s
veins were clogged up, and the blood supply to the limb was broken.
Immediately another operation was performed, and several veins from
the patient’s legs were transplanted into his arm.

Now Karo Simonyan is already in his hospital room, and the doctors say
that his condition is stable, and his blood flow to the hand is fully
restored. He does not want to remember and talk about what happened to
him at the construction site, but looked good, smiling and joking. In
the evening he was expecting an important guest – his girlfriend, and
even prepared a bunch of roses for her.

Simonyan told the correspondent of NEWS.am Medicine that he already
feels tingling and pain in his fingers and is quite optimistic. The
doctors are optimistic, too, but, according to Artavazd Sahakyan, it
will take about 6-8 months until the patient with such an injury is
able to move his fingers. The plastic surgeon Abraham Danielyan thinks
that for complete recovery Karo Simonyan will need about two years.

Amalya Gabrielyan
NEWS.am Medicine

KARABGH
Le Président du Karabagh a visité les chantiers de construction dans
la région d’Askéran

Le Président de la République du Haut-Karabagh a visité la région Askéran.

Bako Sahakian a visité la construction de centres communautaires dans
les villages de Patara et Hantsk.

Le président a rencontré l’administration locale dans Hantsk et a
discuté des problèmes du village et des solutions possibles.

Lors de sa visite le président Sahakian a également visité un centre
culturel dans le village de Astghashen.

Le président du Karabagh a souligné l’importance du développement
équilibré dans les villages pour le pays en termes économiques et
démographiques.

dimanche 9 février 2014,
Stéphane (c)armenews.com

ARMENIAN STUDENTS TO PAY “CONSCRIPTION BOND”

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #722
Feb 7 2014

Officials say refundable payment will deter those going abroad merely
to escape army service.

By Gohar Abrahamyan – Caucasus

New rules designed to stop young Armenians going abroad to study as a
way of avoiding army conscription will prevent all but the wealthiest
benefiting from a foreign education.

Until now, young men who take up study places abroad have been
automatically exempt from army service. A proposal approved by the
government on January 23 would change that, requiring students to
hand over 8.5 million drams (20,000 US dollars) as security, which
they will get back if and when they return. Then they will be drafted
into the military, if required.

The authorities say the refundable sum is intended to guarantee that
students come back, and to deter would-be draft-dodgers from exploiting
the loophole.

Tigran Sahakyan, head of the external relations and diaspora department
at the education ministry, said around 200 people were leaving the
country every year to go on academic exchange programmes administered
by the ministry.

Some 80 to 90 per cent of them were male, he said, and it was clear
many just wanted to avoid military service.

“In the last two or three years, we have noticed that the male
applicants coming to us aren’t really interested in what country
they go to or what course they’ll do. They just want to leave so as
to gain exemption from the army. The proof is that they apply to
sit every single test,” he told IWPR. “That creates an unhealthy,
unfair atmosphere, since there are people who really want to get an
education but who fail the tests.”

Sahakyan said the payment had nothing to do with the cost of foreign
study, which varied from country to country and, in the case of
exchange programmes, was paid for by the host state.

The young men currently reaching conscription age in Armenia were born
in the post-Soviet 1990s, when the birth rate fell sharply. In 1995,
for example, 26,000 baby boys were born, compared with an annual
average of 40,000 in the years 1980 to 1989.

Aharon Adibekyan, head of the Sociometer Research Centre, argues
that the government has every right to engage in social engineering
to boost the number of personnel available for active service.

“Around 5,000-6,000 Armenian students study abroad, and surveys we’ve
done show that two-thirds of them don’t come back. Armenia’s birth
rate has fallen sharply, and this has serious implications for our
defence capacity,” he told IWPR. “Every country resolves its problems
in its own way. The government is doing this to protect the state’s
interests, and there’s nothing odd about that.”

Students and rights activists say the challenge of finding such a lot
of money will prevent all but the wealthiest from furthering their
education abroad.

Vahe Hakobyan, a 17-year-old at an IT college in Yerevan, said he
would now be unable to accept an offer of a study place abroad.

“Sadly, my parents’ only income is their monthly salary. They don’t
have the money to pay a deposit and send me abroad to study,” he told
IWPR. “That this upsets me, since there are far better-qualified
specialists outside the country and I’d have had an opportunity to
acquire a higher qualification. After completing my studies, I was
planning to return and work here. I didn’t intend to run away.”

Artur Sakunts, head of the Vanadzor office of the Helsinki Civil
Assembly, said that only the rich and well-connected would have access
to a world-clas education.

“The government has implemented no reforms; it has pursued dead-end
policies and created a situation where people are forced to leave the
country,” Sakunts said. In this case, he said, “Human resources are
being treated purely as a security problem, not in terms of economic,
cultural and scientific development.”

Arsen Manukyan, who has been at the Higher School of Economics in
Moscow for the three years, agreed that the rules would simply widen
the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

“The world is developing a knowledge-based economy, but they are taking
away our chance of developing intellectually as a society,” he added.

Aram Vardevanyan, head of legal analysis at the Armenian human rights
ombudsman’s office, said the current proposal had in fact been watered
down. Government officials originally wanted to scrap the exemption
from immediate conscription granted to students going abroad, and
only backed down after the ombudsman’s office intervened.

“Entirely annulling the right to exemption could have led to a breach
of the rights to education and to free movement. We therefore suggested
that the government set objective legal standards which one could
fulfil in order to receive an exemption,” he told IWPR.

Gohar Abrahamyan is a correspondent for ArmeniaNow.com.

THREAT TO INVESTMENT TO SUBDUE BORDER TENSIONS

Caucasus Business Forecast Report
February 6, 2014 Thursday

BMI View : T he escalation in violence on the border of the disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh region is unlikely to spur a major conflict between
Azerbaijan and Armenia. Azerbaijan stands to gain significantly in
the long term from increased gas exports to Europe, and will not want
to jeopardise foreign investment by engaging in a conflict that has
been simmering for two decades.

While tensions on the Azerbaijani border with the disputed
Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region escalated in early 2014,
we do not believe that this will lead to a significant deterioration
in the region’s security outlook. There have been conflicting reports
on the extent of casualties, but it is clear that a number of troops
from both the Armenian/Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forces
were killed in several skirmishes in January, representing the most
significant ceasefire violations of years.

Although shootouts, and even deaths, on the border of Nagorno-Karabakh
are not uncommon, the frequency of the clashes in 2014 marks an
intensification of the frozen conflict. The Azeri Ministry of Defence
spokesman Vaqif Dargahli claimed on February 3 that two Azeri troops
had been killed, while “Armenian losses ran into dozens”. This was
countered by a statement from Nagorno-Karabakh’s Defence Ministry
that claimed two Armenians and eight Azeris were killed.

Security Threats The Main Drag Azerbaijan – Short-Term Political Risk
Rating and Components, Out of 100

We do not, however, believe that the deaths will result in a
significant deterioration of the already fractious relationship
between Azerbaijan and its neighbour. With Armenia set to join the
Russian-led customs union in 2014, this will ensure an additional
implicit security guarantee for Armenia (Russia also maintaining
military bases there). The Kremlin will not allow a country that it
pressured into turning its back on the EU, and the security guarantee
that represents, to become a party to a renewed conflict. While
Azerbaijan’s military is far larger and more technologically capable
than Armenia’s, Baku will not take a decision to engage militarily
with a Russian ally lightly. Azerbaijan will be mindful that Georgia’s
attempts to forcibly retake the Russian-back separatist regions of
South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008 prompted a Russian invasion.

For its part we do not believe the government of Azerbaijan would seek
to get involved in any widespread conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh
region. The Azerbaijani economy stands to benefit considerably in
the long term from the increased natural gas exports to Turkey, as
well as Western Europe, facilitated by the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline
(TAP), which is due for completion in 2019 ( see ‘Looming Shah Deniz
Decision Turns On TAP’ 12 December 2013).

An increase in tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh, or the breakout of
large-scale conflict, would significantly hamper any progress on
Azerbaijan’s strategy to become a key energy supplier to Europe.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Azerbaijani oil and gas
sector alone amounted to US$894.2mn in the first three quarters of
2013, nearly 75% of total FDI, and the outbreak of widespread armed
hostilities would certainly result in a sharp decline in this level
of investment.

As a result, while bellicose rhetoric will continue to sustain
popular support for the government of President Ilham Aliyev, we
do not see this translating into a more aggressive military stance
from the government in Baku. According to polls carried out by US
lobbyists and pollsters Arthur J. Finkelstein and Associates before
the October 2013 presidential election, Aliyev retained significant
personal support among the population, not only for presiding over a
period of sustained economic growth, but also for his hardline stance
against what is perceived as Armenian aggression.

Risks To Outlook

As with much political risk analysis on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,
the situation between Azerbaijan and Armenia remains fluid and could
deteriorate substantially in a very short period of time. The key
risk would be the initiation of conflict through miscalculation, as
small-scale skirmishes escalate into a cycle of firmer retaliation,
leading to limited war. This would result in a significant reduction
in FDI, diminishing long-term economic growth potential, as well
as a severe downgrade to our proprietary political risk ratings
for Azerbaijan.

WEST NOT REPEATING IN ARMENIA ITS MISTAKE IN UKRAINE – POLITICIAN

February 07, 2014 | 16:16

YEREVAN. – The West made a gross mistake in Ukraine, and Russia took
advantage of it.

Former Karabakh Committee member, Armenian political activist Ashot
Manucharyan stated the aforementioned at a press conference on Friday.

In his words, the mistake was that the West also raised a geopolitical
matter in Ukraine; that is, not solely getting rid of the ruling
regime, but choosing a European path.

In turn Russia, as per Manucharyan, stated that the West wants to
destroy the Ukrainian industry and introduce foreign values.

“[But] the West does not repeat the same mistake in Armenia. In
Armenia, we hear these calls by the West: Avoid any geopolitical
issues; the main problem is the ruling regime, against which a
rebellion must be prepared,” the political activist noted.

Ashot Manucharyan stressed, however, that the West’s ultimate goals
in the region are geopolitical.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

HRAPARAK: MINISTER SAYS PRIME MINISTER’S PLAN NOT SERIOUS

12:07 07/02/2014 >> DAILY PRESS

Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said while on a visit to Gyumri
in late 2013 that at least three ministries will be moved to Gyumri,
Hraparak writes.

But it turns out that those ministers think that it is not a “working
option,” the newspaper notes.

“The issue of moving ministries to Gyumri was raised partly. It was
not serious, it was just chatter,” Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs
Yuri Vardanyan said.

Source: Panorama.am

LEVON ZURABYAN: THE UNIFICATION OF THE 4 PARLIAMENTARY FORCES HAS PUT MEMBERS OF THE RPA IN A DIFFICULT SITUATION

by Ashot Safaryan

ARMINFO
Friday, February 7, 14:24

The unification of the 4 parliamentary forces, Armenian National
Congress, Prosperous Armenia Party, ARFD and Heritage party, has
put members of the RPA in a difficult situation, the head of the
Armenian National Congress parliamentary faction, Levon Zurabyan,
said at today’s briefing in the parliament. “At present we form
the agenda in the parliament. This makes it possible to deprive the
parliamentary majority of the monopoly”, – he said.

“Today our task is to take the people to the streets, demand a
report from the authorities regarding the illegality in the country,
the report about secret bargains and anti-Constitutional actions”,
– Zurabyan said. He also added that at present the above mentioned
forces have been actively discussing their further joint steps.

Armenian national security service promises to provide evidence of
former policeman’s spying for Azerbaijan

YEREVAN, February 6. /ARKA/. Armenia’s national security agency
promises to provide evidence of former police officer Khachik
Martirosyan’s spying for Azerbaijan.

Martirosyan, 60, was arrested on January 31 on charge of treason. The
national security agency said yesterday it possessed irrefutable
evidence showing that the former police officer was seeking contacts
with Azerbaijani and Georgian embassies, established ties with
Azerbaijani special service officers acting under cover of the embassy
and accepted their offer to spy against own country and to provide
military information to them. The national security agency has opened
criminal proceedings against him.

In the press release sent today to Novosti-Armenia, the agency’s press
office says that Azerbaijan’s national security ministry has denied in
the media report any contact between Martirosyan and Azerbaijani
special service, saying the service doesn’t know this man.

“Unlike appropriate Azerbaijani agencies that are ready to perform a
play portraying Mamikon Khojoyan, 77-year-old Armenian citizen with
mental problems who lives in border area as “Armenian diversionist”,
Armenia’s national security makes accusations grounded on facts which
will be presented in court,” the Armenian security agency’s press
office says.

The agency calls on Azerbaijani side not to be so quick in denying
Martirosyan’s fault and to wait for his trial instead. -0—-

– See more at:

Yerevan protests against new pension plan to become nationwide movement

February 06, 2014 | 14:37

YEREVAN. – The “I am against” civil movement’s “conquest of rights”
march on Thursday, and against the mandatory cumulative pensions in
Armenia, arrived in capital city Yerevan Municipality building.

The participants in the march called upon the city hall employees not
to permit their superiors to deduce the mandatory pension payment from
their salaries.

The demonstrators also urged the Municipality workers and all local
government agencies to organize themselves against the unlawfulness.

In addition, the protestors informed that their next step will be to
stage regional protests.

“This will become a nationwide and a republic-wide movement. We will
demand an end to this unconstitutional law. The movement will gather a
greater momentum. We have come out of the climate of apathy,” the “I
am against” movement members stated, in particular.

The new cumulative pension plan, which formally came into force in
Armenia on January 1, 2014, is mandatory for those born in and after
1974 and voluntary for those born before 1974. In line with this plan,
5 to 10 percent of the monthly salaries in Armenia will be deducted
and mandatorily be allocated to cumulative pension funds; the latter
will be reimbursed as pensions once a person turns 63 years old.

On January 24, however, the Constitutional Court decided to suspend
the execution of the some components of the Law on Cumulative Pensions
pending the hearing of the petition submitted by the four
non-ruling-coalition parliamentary forces–specifically, the Armenian
National Congress, Prosperous Armenia, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, and
Heritage–, and into the constitutionality of the several articles of
the law.

Notwithstanding this, some companies already are deducing the
mandatory pension payment from the salaries of their employees.