Author: Kalantarian Kevo

EBRD FORECASTS 4,5% ECONOMIC GROWTH FOR ARMENIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
July 19, 2012 – 16:38 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD) reviewed the forecasts for Armenia’s economic growth, EBRD
Resident Office in Yerevan said.

“Increase in forecasts for Armenia was conditioned by more optimistic
prediction on the economy of partner countries, particularly that
of Russia,” Valeriu Razlog told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, deeming
the new forecast at the level of 4-4,5% based on 2012 outcomes as
a product of anti-crisis fiscal policy by Armenian government and
monetary policy by the Central Bank of Armenia.

Mr. Razlog further noted that EBRD will follow both domestic and
international developments.

BODY PARTS OF MISSING MAN ARE FOUND IN ARMENIAN CANYON

NEWS.AM
July 19, 2012 | 10:07

YEREVAN. – Body parts of a dead person were discovered at Armenia’s
Byurakan Canyon. The Police press service confirmed this information
to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The Police received the information to this effect from an anonymous
person. According to the Police, ossified body parts of a man were
found, and clothes were discovered 50-60 meters away from the body.

The Police also informed that a nearly 85-year-old man had gone
missing in the year past. Subsequently, a criminal lawsuit was opened
on murder charges.

The missing person’s skull was discovered earlier and, now, his bones
are found.

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON?: INITIATIVE LOBBIES FOR INTERPOL-WANTED VANO SIRADEGHYAN’S “RIGHT TO LIVE IN HIS MOTHERLAND”
By Gayane Lazarian

ArmeniaNow
19.07.12

A social network group calling itself “Yelk” (exit or way out) has
initiated a petition seeking the return of Vano Siradeghyan, the former
Minister of Internal Affairs and mayor of Yerevan who has been wanted
by authorities for 12 years in for his alleged involvement in crime.

A number of politicians and intellectuals have joined the initiative
calling for “the sake of greatly talented writer and state figure
Vano Siradeghyan’s right to live in his motherland”. This week the
Free Democrats party board has decided to also sign the petition.

“We are calling upon those citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
who care for the human rights and victory of justice in our country,
to support this initiative,” Free Democrats said in their statement.

In 1998, a criminal case was filed against Siradeghyan (Karabakh
Committee member since 1988, president of All-Armenian Movement
from 1997 to 2000, and member of parliament from 1996 to1999), for
organizing a number of planned murders. In 2000, the parliament
stripped Siradeghyan of his diplomatic immunity and then of his
parliamentary mandate. The same year (2000) he fled from Armenia and
has been wanted by international intelligence (Interpol) ever since.

Siradeghyan has been charged with almost a dozen articles of the
Criminal Code. Among other things, he is accused of forming an armed
criminal grouping (the “Armen Ter-Sahakyan’s gang”) during his tenure
as Minister of Internal Affairs, in the summer of 1992; of armed
assault and of assassination of individual citizens and officials.

He is allegedly the one who ordered the murder of Hovhannes Sukyasyan,
chairman of Ashtarak regional council’s executive committee;
the one who organized the murder of Hambardzum Gandilyan, head of
administration of Armenian Railways, his driver Hakob Unikyan and
passenger Zhora Isahakyan. Siradeghyan is also accused of preparing
and organizing the assassination attempt against Artur Hakobyan,
who was the head of RA prosecution’s criminal investigation department.

The parliament is scheduled to discuss an amnesty project by the
end of July; justice minister Hrayr Tovmasyan says the text has been
prepared by employees of the ministry and the presidential staff. An
opinion is circulated in the press that amnesty would also apply to
Siradeghyan, if he comes back to Armenia before then.

Parliament speaker Hovik Abrahamyan says he has no such information.

“I’m not expecting him; if he wants to come back, let him come,
it’s his business,” says the country’s chief lawmaker.

Heritage party member, political analyst Stepan Safaryan told
ArmeniaNow that all this indicates a decision made on the highest
level to allow Siradeghyan’s return to Armenia.

“He left Armenia during Robert Kocharyan’s presidency. If during the
current president’s tenure Siradeghyan is allowed to come back and his
wrongdoings can fall under amnesty, it means that the current president
himself has made a decision to drop the prosecution,” says Safaryan.

In his interview to Hayeli.am Ashot Bleyan, who signed the petition,
headmaster of Mkhitar Sebastatsi educational center, former education
and science minister, said that Siradeghyan’s return represents a
political solution, because the political leadership has to have
courage to take that risk.

“It also requires public consent. If Vano has to answer in law, he
has to answer to the Armenian society, has to answer to me. I can ask
him questions. And that has to be done in public, and Vano will find a
way to do so. Estranging Vano means being afraid of him,” says Bleyan.

Political analyst Yervand Bozoyan, in charge of Mitk (“thought”)
analytical center, told ArmeniaNow that if Siradeghyan had made a
statement himself, it’d be easier to comment on the issue.

Writer Sergey Galoyan believes that today Armenia needs Vano
Siradeghyan – “one of the best modern writers, a charismatic figure”.

“In the ’90s Siradeghyan did in Armenia what Benito Mussolini did in
1923, that is, he ‘uprooted mobsters,’ he said, claiming that six
months ago Siradeghyan’s criminal case disappeared during transfer
from one court to another.

In this connection RA Judicial department spokesperson Arsen Babyan
told media representatives that Siradeghyan’s case is in the judicial
department’s archive.

“TWO MOUNTAINS HAVE BEEN CUT OFF, IN ORDER NOT TO APPROACH AZERBAIJAN DURING A FLIGHT,” HOVHANNES TOKMAJYAN SAYS ABOUT THE STEPANAKERT AIRPORT (VIDEO)
Gohar HAKOBYAN

July 18, 2012 12:45

The Stepanakert airport, the existence of which concerns Azerbaijan –
and from time to time statements are made from there – will be ready
to carry out flights in a few weeks. Hovhannes Tokmajyan, the rector
of Yerevan State University of Architecture and

Construction, who had had a few flights already, although by
helicopter, said about this today.

The Stepanakert airport has been designed by Yerevan State University
of Architecture and Construction (designer: Tigran Barseghyan),
has been built under the guidance of Gagik Galstyan, a member of the
council of the same university and the president of the Republic of
Armenia Union of Constructors.

Hohannes Tokmajyan asserts that the airport reminds of a falcon or a
helicopter preparing to take off. In order to carry out the project,
serious engineering solutions have been made, even two mountains have
been cut off, in order to carry out a flight without approaching the
Azerbaijani territory.

“This is an unprecedented event for civil aviation. The supermodern
devises set up at the airport supervise a flight starting from a few
kilometers. One can see both Yerevan and Baku from the remote control,”
Mr. Tokmajyan says.

According to him, the government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
intends to build a new building for the airport. “I think that the
Stepanakert airport has already played its role, although flights have
basically not been carried out yet. Only the fact that the symbols of
Artsakh – grandmother and grandfather – as well as the pictures of
the airport are on everybody’s, also our opponents’, websites means
that the airport has already played its political role. I don’t think
that there can be any sovereign state without an airport. From this
perspective, building the airport was a necessity and is one of the
best among the projects carried out in past years.”

AZERBAIJANI MINISTRY: SO-CALLED “ELECTIONS” IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH AIMED AT ANNEXATION OF TERRITORIES OCCUPIED BY ARMENIA

Trend
July 18 2012
Azerbaijan

The so-called “elections” in Nagorno-Karabakh are organized in order to
camouflage the policy of Armenia aimed at annexation of the occupied
territories and to promote the results of the continued occupation
of the Azerbaijani territories, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry
said today.

The so-called “presidential elections” are being arranged to take
place in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of
Azerbaijan on July 19, 2012.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan
reiterates in this regard that the Republic of Armenia, having occupied
the Azerbaijani territories and conducted ethnic cleansing against
local Azerbaijani population, has established illegal authorities in
the occupied territories.

Such action, in absence of the original Azerbaijani population of
the Nagorno-Karabakh region and without necessary authorization
of respective structures of the Republic of Azerbaijan, gravely
violates the relevant provisions of the Constitution of the Republic
of Azerbaijan and the norms and principles of international law and,
therefore shall have no legal effect whatsoever.

Holding legitimate elections will be possible after the withdrawal of
the Armenian occupying forces, normalization of life in the region,
return of expelled Azerbaijani population and creation of necessary
conditions for restoration of the dialogue and cooperation between the
Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of the Nagorno-Karabakh region
of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said.

The Republic of Azerbaijan calls upon the Armenian side instead of
its destructive illegal steps, which does not have any prospects,
to withdraw its Armed Forces from the Azerbaijani territories, thus
opening prospects for sustainable peace, security and development of
the entire region.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France and the U.S. –
are currently holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

MINISTER: AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN FMS MAY MEET IN NEW YORK

Trend
July 18 2012
Azerbaijan

Next meeting of foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia may be
held in New York within a session of the UN General Assembly in late
September, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said at a
press conference in Baku on Wednesday.

He said the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs made this proposal.

“The co-chairs also plan to hold individual meetings with Armenia
and Azerbaijan’s foreign ministers,” Mammadyarov said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France and the U.S. –
are currently holding peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

ALL FLOODS AND EARTHQUAKES CAUSED BY HUMAN ACTIONS?

PRAVDA

July 17 2012
Russia

Any cataclysm causes a great deal of rumors and the most controversial
speculation. For example, victims of the earthquake in Armenia
in 1988 sincerely believed that right before the shocks a silver
plane appeared in the sky and something was dropped from it. This
is a simple property of the human psyche – to try to explain blind
violence of nature by human actions and find the cause that triggered
the cataclysm. You cannot flog the ocean for drowning the ship.

The events in and around Krymsk go far beyond the standard reactions
of shocked people to a disaster. The city in the Krasnodar region,
without exaggeration, has become a ground for testing political
strategies. It is already clear that there are organized groups of
manipulators using the emotions of the locals in their own interests.

The rumors of draining water from the reservoir as the cause of the
catastrophic floods that enveloped the city are easily explained. This
is very similar to the silver airplane in the sky of Armenia that was
witnessed by thousands in various parts of the country. The people
were genuinely indignant when rescuers tried to appeal to their
common sense.

It is more difficult to explain the emergence of a statement of
a Krymsk resident Julia Andropova on the morning after the flood
(July 7) that said: “Yesterday at 21:53 Krymsk took the hit!” The
woman, referring to her father who worked at Neverdjayevskaya power
station, revealed the details of how the floodgates were opened and
a catastrophic wave was directed at the city – “to save Novorossiysk.”

Novorossiysk is separated from Krymsk by a mountain ridge, the
Neverdjayevskaya station does not have locks that can be opened,
the electricity supply to Krymsk was resumed on July 8-9, cellular
communication was restored on the 9th, but these details have not
been taken into account. The statement was very popular online, and
was quoted by electronic and print media, the rumors have returned
to the city endowed with many details and backed up by the authority
of the media.

Today, despite all rebuttals, despite the fact that an independent
group from Krymsk has circled Neverdjayevskaya dam reservoir on an
airplane, the attempts to fully refute the belief of the people that a
wave was directed at them intentionally, have failed. People started
talking about other reservoirs in the region from which the water
could go to town. They began to look for other causes of flooding,
understanding that the “Novorossiysk” theory had failed. Other
theories included “drained water from the site of Grushevka Rosneft”,
“tried to save Putin’s dacha in Praskoveevka,” etc.

Social networks played a significant role in spreading these rumors.

Suffice it to say that bloggers are still looking for lies in the
reports on the absence of locks at the Neverdjayevskaya station,
saying: “We were lied to, locks must be there”. It seems that if social
networks existed in 1988, the man-made theory of the earthquake in
Armenia would have become self-sustaining throughout the country.

Yet, not everything has to do only with the specific network
conspiracy. The events have obvious features of a planned political
campaign, and for the first time in modern Russian history, it goes
far beyond the blogosphere and some opposition media.

Earlier this week, leaflets were spotted in Krymsk depicting laughing
portrait of Putin and the slogan “Your problems only amuse me!” This
could be perceived as an idiotic act of a citizen obsessed with
politics. However, on July 9 unidentified vehicles in the streets were
announcing to the local residents that the second wave of floods was
coming. Allegedly, the dam at the reservoir Neverdjayevskaya broke
down and another multi-meter wave of water was approaching the city.

These “warnings” have generated a serious panic in the city, people
rushed to the roofs of the houses, traffic jams emerged on the exits
from Krymsk. Local authorities tried to calm the citizens down for
hours, let the police cars on the streets urging people not to give
in to provocations, explained that there was no second wave and the
reservoir was fine.

Provocateurs were not found. In a dilapidated, panic-ridden city,
the search and identification of criminals has become a real problem.

However, the mere appearance of such “warning vehicles” is remarkable.

It means only one thing – there is an organized group of provocateurs
in Krymsk seeking to undermine the situation, politicize the
disaster, and direct anger and frustration of people in the direction
advantageous for the manipulators.

It is hardly likely that anyone really plans to raise a wave of
protests in the small town in Kuban. Most likely, the spin doctors in
Krymsk are training, testing the actions in crisis situations. The
destroyed city was turned into testing grounds, which makes this
situation even worse.

Anton Ponomarev

Pravda.Ru

UNION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ENTERPRISES IS READY TO ASSIST SYRIAN-ARMENIAN SPECIALISTS IN FINDING JOBS

news.am
July 18, 2012 | 15:10

YEREVAN. – The Armenian Union of Information Technology Enterprises
(UITE) expressed a readiness to assist the Syrian-Armenian community’s
Information Technology (IT) and Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) sector specialists and engineers in finding jobs in
Armenia, and along the lines of their profession.

Those Syrian-Armenian specialists who wish to work in Armenia can
send their information to the Union’s Email at [email protected], UITE
public relations service informs.

The Union will transfer this information to 350 technology companies
and assist in recruitment.

Also, UITE applied to Armenia’s Diaspora and Foreign Affairs
ministries, concerning this matter, and asked them to inform-by way
of Armenia’s Embassy, Church organizations, and respective agencies
of the Syrian-Armenian community-the Syrian-Armenian IT and ICT
specialists about the offer to work in Armenia.

WATER DISPUTE: ENVIRONMENTALISTS/OMBUDSMAN CONCERNED OVER LAW ON LAKE SEVAN
By Gohar Abrahamyan

ArmeniaNow
18.07.12 | 15:08

Amendments to legislation that allow additional drainage from Lake
Sevan are in the focus of environmentalists and Armenia’s ombudsman.

This summer amendments to RA Law “On Establishing Annual and Complex
Program for Restoration, Protection, Reproduction and Use of Lake
Sevan Ecosystems” were adopted, under which in 2012, annual water
outlets from Lake Sevan will be increased from 170 million cubic
meters to 320 million cubic meters.

State officials consider the new bill to be necessary and nonhazardous,
and the Ministry of Nature Protection claims that the additional
water outlet from Lake Sevan will not result in the decrease of the
lake level. But environmentalists consider taking even one cubic
meter of water from the lake to be unacceptable and believe that
additional water outlets from Lake Sevan are not connected with
lack of water. The bill’s critics say it is done because the rise
in Lake Sevan’s level will cause damage to hotels and restaurants,
which belong to a number of officials.

Levon Azizyan, head of Hydrology Center of Haypethydromet Service
stated last week that the snowy winter and rainy spring were followed
by gradual rise in temperature, there was no intensive snow melting,
which caused less lake water.

“During the recent years the level of Lake Sevan has been rising by 50
centimeters as a result of spring thaw, however this year it rose only
by 23 centimeters. It is linked with only 50 percent of precipitations
in April-May. These precipitations were quite few and they did not
affect the water flow [to Lake Sevan] significantly,” Azizyan said.

Armenian Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Karen Andreasyan also voiced
his concerns over the Sevan issue and made a statement which says:
“The ignorance of set procedural rules in case of decision-making in
environmental matters is impermissible, which result in the violation
of information accessibility, transparency of decision-making, public
participation principles. The draft amendments to legislation on
Lake Sevan were adopted hastily, without organizing public hearings,
without publishing the viewpoints of interested ministries and bodies,
without submitting to the Human Rights Defender’s office.”

3 ARMENIANS DIE IN HUGE ROAD ACCIDENT IN GEORGIA

news.am
July 18, 2012 | 12:12

YEREVAN. – There are three Armenians among those who lost their lives
in Tuesday’s traffic accident in Georgia, MFA Press Secretary Tigran
Balayan told Armenian News-NEWS.am, and added that these Armenians
were citizens of Georgia.

And they are: Naira Tumasyan, 30, Zinavor Fyodorov, 27, and Zima
Fyodorova, 4.

To note, the huge accident occurred on the Akhalkalaki-Batumi Highway.

Crashing with a passenger car, an Opel passenger minibus was burned
down, and, as a result, its driver and six passengers died and five
others were hospitalized. .

Four of the inured are in stable condition, whereas another is in
very critical condition.

It is apparent that the minibus was used for local public transport
and the passengers were not tourists. Passengers from Javakhk use
this route to go to Batumi.

Javakhk-Georgian name: Javakheti-is an Armenian-populated part of
Georgia’s southeastern Samtskhe-Javakheti Province.