Author: Kalantarian Kevo

IRAN INVITES ARMENIA PRESIDENT TO UPCOMING NAM SUMMIT

Press TV
July 10 2012
Iran

Iran has invited Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to take part in
the forthcoming Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in the Iranian
capital, Tehran.

During a Monday meeting with Sargsyan, Iran’s Interior Minister Mostafa
Mohammad-Najjar extended President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad~Rs invitation
to his Armenian counterpart to attend the NAM summit.

The 16th NAM summit will be held in Tehran on August 26-31, during
which the Islamic Republic will also assume the rotating presidency
of the movement for three years.

Accepting the invitation, the Armenian leader said consultations
between the two countries’ officials will help further strengthen
bilateral ties.

He described the mutual relations between Iran and Armenia as ‘very
good’ and growing, adding that, “Armenia will do its best to implement
the previous[ly-signed] agreements.”

Mohammad-Najjar, for his part, said Yerevan has a special place in
Iran’s foreign policy and called for increasing bilateral transactions,
given the ‘great’ capacities between Tehran and Yerevan.

“We have come to Armenia to expand ties between the two countries.

Both countries have great potential in various areas, such as economy,
culture, politics and energy…. Armenia is our neighbor and there are
also security issues that concern both of us, such as border issues,
narcotics, and money laundering,” the Iranian minister told Press TV.

He expressed the country’s preparedness to sign memoranda of
understandings (MoU) in the field of security with Armenia.

Iran is prepared to share its experiences in countering drug
trafficking , organized crimes, crisis management and dam building
with Yerevan, he added.

Mohammad-Najjar also held a separate meeting with Armenian Parliament
Speaker Hovik Abrahamian later on Monday.

The Iranian minister arrived in Yerevan at the head of a high-ranking
delegation on Monday for a two-day visit.

Mohammad-Najjar was welcomed by Armenia’s Emergency Situations Minister
Armen Yeritsya.

“We must expand our ties and cooperate more. Iran and Armenia have
always enjoyed friendly relations,” said the Armenian minister.

Iran and Armenia have taken major strides towards promoting their
mutual relations over the recent years, particularly in the energy
sector.

BUZZFEED: SCHMIDT’S OFFICE EDITED OUT REFERENCE TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL

Cincinnati.com

July 10 2012

Rep. Jean Schmidt is one of 33 lawmakers whose offices have done
“a bit of historical airbrushing” to their Wikipedia profiles,
according to an item in BuzzFeed.

BuzzFeed says it used congressional IP addresses to figure out which
lawmakers’ offices edited out embarrassing tidbits from the online
reference site.

What revisions did Schmidt’s office make? “Removed entire ‘Armenian
Genocide Denial issue’ section,” BuzzFeed reports.

Schmidt has long sided with Turkish-American interest groups in
opposing legislation to label as “genocide” the mass killing and
deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire starting in 1915. Her
position on the issue earned her harsh criticism from a political
opponent, David Krikorian, an Armenian American who accused her of
taking “blood money” from Turkish interests to push the anti-genocide
position.

Krikorian filed an ethics complaint, and the House Ethics Committee
eventually concluded that Schmidt had unknowingly accepted an improper
gift from the Turkish Coalition of America. That group was paying
the legal bills in Schmidt’s court tangle with Krikorian, including
a defamation suit she had filed against him.

It’s not clear when Schmidt’s office removed that section, but it’s
back in now. Here’s the BuzzFeed link and here’s Schmidt’s Wikipedia
entry .

AZERBAIJAN HOPES RF WILL CONTINUE EFFORTS TO SETTLE KARABAKH CONFLICT

ITAR-TASS
July 9, 2012 Monday 12:38 PM GMT+4
Russia

Azerbaijan hopes that Russia will continue efforts aimed settling
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, chairman of Milli Majlis (parliament)
Oktai Asadov said.

By accepting the Russian parliamentary delegation led by State Duma
speaker Sergei Naryshkin on Monday, Asadov said, “We praise Russia’s
role in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In recent
times the Azerbaijani and Russian presidents have met 10 times. I’m
sure that Russian President Vladimir Putin will exert maximum effort
to resolve the conflict.”

“Russia has political and economic possibilities for this and the
authority in the region,” the parliament chairman said.

Asadov said he is hopeful that the conflict might be settled in the
near future. Thus, the resolution of the crisis will allow the country
to develop the region.

On Monday, the State Duma speaker and members of the Russian delegation
laid wreaths at the tomb of Azerbaijani national leader Geidar Aliyev.

16-YEAR-OLD BOY DROWNS IN ARMENIA’S LAKE SEVAN

news.am
July 10, 2012 | 16:03

YEREVAN. – Armenia’s Emergency Situations Ministry received
information, on Tuesday at 2:15pm, that while on duty at Lake Sevan
the special water-rescue squad noticed a person drowning near a beach.

The lifeguards rescued Narek Aleksanyan, 16-a resident of Azatavan
village of the Ararat Region-, administered him first aid and
transferred him to hospital where, however, he lost his life, the
Ministry press service informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

DOES ARMENIA’S PARLIAMENT SPEAKER HAVE A GREEN THUMB? ABRAHAMYAN & WIFE MAKE MILLIONS SELLING FARM PRODUCE
Grisha Balasanyan

hetq
17:52, July 9, 2012

Here’s another example of a top Armenian official raking in the
big bucks.

This time, it’s National Assembly President Hovik Abrahamyan and his
wife Julieta. The source of their millions is…farming.

You might ask what does a parliamentary speaker know about tilling
the land and related matters. Does the guy have a green thumb?

Even the most successful farmers would be envious, let alone your
average rural residents who are up to their neck in bank debt just
to work a small family plot.

In 2011, Hovik Abrahamyan had total revenues of 43.6 million AMD;
some 40 million from selling agricultural produce. The other 3.6
million was his salary.

His cash assets are nothing to sneeze about either – AMD 290 million
and $2 million.

Julieta is better off financially than her spouse, Last year she had
AMD 300 million and $2.9 million.

Her revenues also surpass that of her husband, totalling AMD 45
million from the sale of farm produce.

Just for comparison, Hovik Abrahamyan declared AMD 29.9 million in
revenue for 2009 and 25.5 million in 2010.

Whether they make their money selling the produce grown by others or
on their own lands, we can’t say.

Maybe they would be nice enough to impart some of their “trade secrets”
to Armenia’s other tillers of the soil.

They sure need the help.

ARMENIANS IN FRANCE WILL MEET F. HOLLANDE TO DISCUSS THE NEW BILL OF THE CRIMINALIZATION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL

French Government will prepare a new bill on criminalization of
Armenian Genocide denial. Agency France Press informs about this
referring to the co-chairman of the Coordinating Council of Armenian
Organizations of France (CCAF) Frank Papazyan.

According to the source on July 9 F. Papazyan had a meeting with the
councellor of the French President in order ~Sto discuss the agenda of
the meeting with President Hllande and also to speak about the bill
of the criminalization of Armenian Genocide which will be discussed
and presented by the French Government in autumn~T.

Meeting of the leaders of Armenian organizations in France and Francois
Hollande will take place during July 16-30.

French Minister of Foreign Affairs Loran Fabius announced during
the meeting with his Turkish counterpart A. Davutoglu that the
Constitutional Court might again deny the bill. But the Presidential
residence confirmed that Hollande would not deny his pre-electoral
promise and the bill would be worked out.

The bill of criminalization of Armenian Genocide was accepted by
French Senate and Parliament in January, this year. But the bill was
announced anti-constitutional by the Constitutional Council of France.

If the bill was accepted the one who denied Armenian Genocide
publically in the territory of France would be fined with 45.000
Euros and would be sentenced for a year. The bill-maker deputy Valerie
Boyer announced that she would work out another bill.

PARAJANOV IS EQUAL TO THE WHOLE HOLLYWOOD DIRECTING STAFF. IRANIAN DIRECTOR

ARMENPRESS
10 July, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, JULY 10 ARMENPRESS: In the 9 th International Film Festival
competition a well known Iranian film director Ahmad Reza Motamedi’s
film entitled “Altsheymer” will also be presented.

At the briefing with the journalists Motamedi has mentioned that he is
glad he is at last in Parajanov’s country-Armenia, Armenpres reports.

He said, “Such a director is equal to the whole Hollywood directing
staff”.

Motamedi has a philosopher’s profession, the motives of which he is
trying to introduce in his film in a simpler way.

“I’m interested in man , his transformation, as Kamyu, Kafka,
Sartre have presented in the international literature”, the Iranian
director noted.”Altsheymer” (people who lost their memories) Iran’s
full-length feature film tells a story of a woman who has lost his
husband in an accident and twenty years later cannot adjust to her
own burnt body,who is unable to believe his loss. While the family
remembers the late husband, the woman goes on giving expressions to
the newspapers such as :”I am desperately searching “, he said.

Motamedi is trying to discover the woman, her philosophy in his
films, because he thinks that the female aren’t discovered yet. ”
They haven’t been understood, aren’t understood today in the whole
world”, said the director. To Ahmad Reza Motamedi’s word the Iranian
directors have found the dialogue language with the world. “One should
rely on local life, should show traditional pictures choosing the
correct characters. It’s necessary to show the issues the humanity
is interested in” Motamedi concluded .

Golden Apricot Film Festival will last till Luly 15, it is held by
the support of the Ministry of Culture.

PAP LEADER’S HIGH RATING TROUBLES RULING CIRCLES – SPOKESMAN

tert.am
10.07.12

The high reputation enjoyed by the Prosperous Armenia leader definitely
troubles certain ruling classes in Armenia, a spokesperson has said,
commenting on media reports that link a Russian serviceman’s murder
with Gagik Tsarukyan’s name.

“Several media outlets have been recently addressing a 2007 incident in
an attempt to link it with Multi Group [Concern] and the bodyguards of
PAP President Gagik Tsarukyan,” reads a statement by Tigran Urikhanyan,
the press secretary of the party.

Urikhanyan complains that the outlets are seeking to distort certain
cases at their own discretion in order to discredit the PAP leader.

“It is obvious that the PAP leader’s high reputation and the
high resource of trust public trust enjoyed by the party troubles
certain ruling circles in Armenia,” Urkikhanyan says, adding that
the circumstances of the servicemen’s death are known absolutely
to everyone.

“None of Tsarukyan’s bodyguards had anything to do with the case.

What’s even more, we know about both the masterminds behind the
Goebbels propaganda and the mechanisms of its implementation.

The PAP spokesperson claims that such reports pursue a special purpose
to distract the society from real challenges and problems.

“The masterminds of such disinformation cannot even imagine that their
outdated tools appear dilettante enough to uncover them scandalously
five minutes after they appear in any newspaper or website,” he says.

MERKEL REJECTS DISCUSSION OVER ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAW

tert.am
10.07.12

A genocide law has proved to be the most popular suggestion on the
online platform, with nearly 157,000 Germans saying they wanted the
government to pass a law which would make it illegal to deny that
the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the WWII period
was genocide.

Such a move – already attempted by France – would badly harm
relations with Turkey, a key trade partner, and Merkel rejected
it in a discussion this week with some of the poll participants,
Reuters reported.

Merkel also turned down a call for holding more critical debates
about Islam, a politically sensitive issue in Germany which is home
to around four million Muslims.

Merkel, who comes from formerly communist eastern Germany, responded
much more warmly to a proposal to plant trees in towns and cities
across Germany as memorials to German reunification.

Other popular suggestions made in the survey included more political
support for home births and making artificial insemination more
affordable.

The online poll is part of an ongoing government initiative called
“Dialogue on the Future” that aims to get ordinary Germans thinking
about how to improve life in Germany.

The recent rapid rise of a new party, the Pirates, who campaign for
Internet freedoms, has underlined to German politicians the growing
importance of the web for mobilising citizens in support of political
causes.

ARF CONTINUES TO INSIST ON THE TRANSFER FROM PRESIDENTIAL TO PARLIAMENTARY FORM OF GOVERNMENT
Lusine Vasilyan

“Radiolur”
10.07.2012 18:07

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation reconfirms the policy line it
has been following in the recent period. It wants a complete change
of power, representative of the ARF Supreme Body Armen Rustamyan told
a press conference today.

According to Rustamyan, Dashnaktsutyun intends to nominate its own
candidate at the forthcoming presidential elections, but no final
decision has been made. He said the issue will be discussed at a
special session.

The three-day session of the ARF Supreme Council of Armenia discussed
all issues related to the socio-economic condition of the country,
the foreign and domestic policies.

“Our assessment is very clear: the foreign and domestic policies
of the Armenian authorities have been a complete failure. We have
registered worrisome regress in all spheres,” Armen Rustamyan said.

In the nearest future the Armenian Revolutionary Federation will
be trying to unite the Armenian opposition around two main ideas –
transfer from the presidential to parliamentary form of government and
providing the opposition with levers of control over the authorities.