Author: Kanayan Tamar

KILLED MILITARY DOCTOR’S FATHER HUMILIATED, PUBLIC FIGURE SAYS

tert.am
03.08.12

Father of military doctor Vahe Avetyan, severely beaten to death
at Harsnakar restaurant, is being humiliated, ethnographer, public
figure Hranush Kharatyan told the reporters on Friday.

She said he is being called to the investigative body and forced to
wait for hours being told that the person who invited him is not in.

Kharatyan claims such actions are aimed at scaring Vahe’s relatives.

“Imagine only, these people were praying day and night for their son,
and after Vahe’s death his father is being called to the investigative
body. They humiliate and want to scare this person. We are going to
fight till the end to reach justice,” Hranush Kharatyan said.

Davit Sanasaryan, member of the opposition Heritage party, said “Vahe
Avetyan” public initiative will use all the means for fight. “We
will not say what we are going to do, but all will be done within
the limits of law,” Sanasaryan said.

Three military doctors were severely beaten by the restaurant’s
security guards on June 17. One of them, Vahe Avetyan, died in hospital
twelve days later.

Six individuals have detained over the case. Some of them are said
to be the personal bodyguards of the restaurant’s owner, Ruben
Hayrapetyan, who is also the president of the Football Federation
of Armenia.

PRESIDENT ILHAM ALIYEV’S COUSIN TAKES LOCAL ENTREPRENEURS’ PROPERTY TURNING THEM INTO TENANTS

Turan

BAKU. August 2, 2012: A group of businessmen from Khirdalan (20 km
north of Baku) held a press conference today, complaining that the
local authorities were demolishing their business offices to free the
land for a market owned by Ilgar Aliyev, president Ilham Aliyev’s
cousin. The businessmen told the media that the local authorities
disguised their real motives saying the demolition were part of the
“beautification plans” on Khirdalan.

According to businessman Agarazi Hashimov, one of the aggrieved
businessmen in Khirdalan, the local authorities had already demolished
31 businesses belonging to the families of the Garabagh war veterans.

The businessmen told the media that they found out that the whole
reason behind the demolition project was clearing the space for a new
market of Ilgar Aliyev, president Ilham Aliyev’s cousin. Officials
told the owners of the demolished facilities that the new shopping
center would give them spaces in the area that they could rent for
1,000 manat a month (appr. $1,200).

“We do not agree to lease the area, built on the lands which we owned.

We want them to pay fair compensation (1.5 thousand manat per sq. m.),
the amount declared to be the fair value of the condemned property
by the President Ilham Aliyev himself,” said the businessmen.

The same businessmen had already expressed their protests, first by
blocking the Baku – Sumgayit highway, then holding a demonstration
in front of the Administration of the President.

Today, through the media, they appealed to the Azerbaijani government
and the public, and next week they plan to hold a protest action once
again (Turan).

MAN FOUND DROWNED IN HRAZDAN HYDRO POWER PLANT CANAL

news.am
August 03, 2012 | 10:27

YEREVAN.- A man was found drowned in the canal of Armenia’s Hrazdan
hydro power plant.

The Ministry of Emergency Situation said it had received a call at
about 10 p.m. on Thursday saying a man fell into a canal of Hrazdan
hydro power plant and rescuers’ help is needed.

The rescuers of Kotayk region and six divers headed to the accident
site. They found a body of a man at midnight. The man was identified
as resident of Hrazdan, 57-year-old Khachik Hayrapetyan.

FRENCH-ARMENIANS SLAM BILL ON OPENING AZERBAIJANI CULTURAL CENTER IN PARIS

tert.am
03.08.12

The Co-ordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF)
has condemned a government-proposed bill on establishing an Azerbaijan
cultural center in Paris.

According Nouvelles d’Armenie, they have issued a statement in that
connection, expressing astonishment over the plan.

“On July 25, [Prime Minister] Jean-Mark Ayrault and [Foreign Minister]
Lauren Fabius submitted to the Council of Ministers a draft that
would allow the Azerbaijani dictatorship to found a cultural center
in Paris. The CCAF is very surprised that France’s new government
attaches a big urgency to the draft, including it in the agenda. Are
there no other priorities in France?” reads the statement.

The members of the Council note that international human rights
organizations constantly slam the Aliyev regime for violation of
human rights and racist and non-democratic policies.

“Following the anti-Armenian war against Nagorno-Karabakh, Baku has
multiplied its threats against not only the Republic but also the
Armenians worldwide, whom President Aliyev called his country’s enemies
without any hesitation in an April 16 scandalous speech,” the say.

Taking into consideration the above, the Council considers the move
very surprising and shocking.

YEREVAN HAS A NEW CYCLE OF DEVELOPMENT AND BEAUTIFYING: IRANIAN AMBASSADOR

ARMENPRESS
AUGUST 3, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, AUGUST 3, ARMENPRESS: Mayor of Yerevan Taron Margaryan hosted
ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic
of Iran to the Republic of Armenia Mohammad Raiesi. Armenpress was
informed from the municipality of Yerevan that greeting the ambassador
the mayor congratulated on occasion of holding a diplomatic post in our
country and hoped that the warm relations between Yerevan and Iranian
cities would have further development and have practical character. “I
am sure that the cooperation between Yerevan and Iranian cities will
be continued, and the municipality will do its best to strengthen them”
mentioned the mayor.

Introducing to the ambassador the development programs of the capital
Taron Margaryan put the importance of expanding the cooperation with
Iranian cities.

Thanking for warm reception the ambassador assured that he will be
involved actively in strengthening and expanding the cooperation
between Yerevan and Iranian cities. “Today there is a great potential
to transfer the cooperation between the cities of two countries to
more practical level. Seeing the programs and works in your capital I
realized that Yerevan has a new cycle of development and beautifying”
mentioned the ambassador.

LEONID YENGIBARYAN STATUE TO BE ERECTED IN TSAGHKADZOR

ARMENPRESS
AUGUST 2, 2012
YEREVAN

Armenian legendary clown Leonid Yengibaryan soon will “welcome” our
compatriots as well as our guests arrived from around the world. In
the central square of Tsaghkadzor central square the famous clown
statue is scheduled to be erected on August 13.

As the author of the statue, sculpture Davit Minasyan told in the
briefing with Armenpress, the sculpture is going to symbolize an
episode from his famous small short story . Bronze statue will be
placed on one meter height granite pedestal: the overall height will
make four meters.

In the words of the author while working on the statue he encountered
many challenges: it is too difficult to create a statue of a person who
symbolizes plasticity. ” And you should present in the static form a
man who is has always been in movement” Davit Minasyan came forth with.

Mime Festival after Leonid Yengibaryan is scheduled to be held in
Tsaghkadzor , August 10-15 . The event is organized by Ministry
of Culture, Yerevan State Pantomime Theater, National theatrical
creativity union and the administrative unit of Tsakhkadzor.

Individuals from different countries as well as mime theatrical groups
are set to take part in then festival.

BY BELATEDLY JOINING THE REBELS, SYRIA’S KURDS ARE PLAYING A CANNY GAME

Aug 4th 2012

IN THE Arabic dialects of Iraq and Syria, a man who is unreasonably
stubborn is said to have the mind of a Kurd. Perhaps such
hardheadedness explains how the Kurds, buffeted for centuries between
Persian, Arab, Turkish and Russian empires, have sustained a proud
sense of nationhood. It may also explain why Syria’s 3m-odd Kurds,
despite suffering more than other minorities during 40 years of rule
by the Assad clan, are only now, and hesitantly, joining the fight
to overthrow it.

As battles have raged elsewhere, a string of Kurdish-majority towns
in Syria’s hitherto relatively peaceful north-east have quietly seen
local authority seized from the central government in Damascus.

Kurdish activists now occupy most state institutions there, including
police stations, and have set up road blocks in a swathe of territory
along the frontier with Turkey.

Their autonomy is far from complete. Government forces still hold the
bigger cities of Kamishli and Hasaka, as well as airports and main
roads. But the boldness of the takeover and the apparent complicity,
however reluctant, of the Syrian authorities, carry implications that
stretch beyond Syria’s borders.

Turkey, for instance, is not amused. The best armed and most active
of Kurdish groups inside Syria, the Democratic Union Party (known by
its Kurdish initials, PYD) is closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers’
Party (the PKK), a leftist group whose guerrillas, demanding autonomy
for Turkey’s 10m-13m Kurds, have mounted an on-off insurgency since
1984 that has left 45,000 dead. Under President Bashar Assad’s father,
Hafez, Syria’s regime provided a quiet haven for the PKK.

Tensions in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated south-east had diminished
in recent years, with Kurds welcoming a more receptive response to
demands for national rights, while the Kurdish regional government
in northern Iraq sometimes restricts PKK access to its own rugged
Turkish borderlands. But troubles have brewed anew as Turkey’s mildly
Islamist ruling AK party has emphasised Turkish nationalism.

After a spring lull, scores of Turkish soldiers have been killed in
PKK attacks. Turkish leaders say bluntly that they will not tolerate
Syria again becoming a staging post for PKK operations, and have sent
reinforcements to the border.

Turkey also sent its foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, to parley
with Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

Economically buoyant and politically secure, Iraq’s 5m Kurds have
wielded growing influence in what they call Western Kurdistan-Syria’s
flat, thinly-populated north-east. In early July, Mr Barzani himself
brokered a deal whereby the PYD agreed to share power with a coalition
of smaller Syrian Kurdish parties, the Kurdish National Council. At
least on paper, this has ended years of nasty bickering between
myriad Syrian Kurdish factions, and paved the way for their recent
joint takeover of local government.

Syria’s Kurds are less geographically concentrated than their Iraqi
brethren, with perhaps a majority now living in the main cities
of Damascus and Aleppo. Decades of divide-and-rule tactics by the
central government, which long denied basic citizenship to hundreds of
thousands of Kurds, have exacerbated tribal, linguistic and religious
divisions.

Factionalism has only intensified as Syria drifted into civil war.

Some Kurdish groups opted to co-operate with the broader Syrian
opposition. The ruthless and highly disciplined PYD accused them of
being either dupes of Arab nationalists or pawns of the Turks. Its
rivals whispered that the PYD was being empowered by Syria’s
intelligence service as a prod against Turkey; hence, the theory
goes, the surprising willingness of government officials to hand over
local power. Partly as a result, the Kurds have until now failed to
respond to pleas from other rebel groups to throw their weight behind
the uprising.

But there is another reason for Kurdish reticence. To the extreme
annoyance of Mr Assad’s other enemies, Syria’s fractious Kurds have
united in driving a hard bargain. In return for joining the fight, they
want ironclad guarantees that in a future Syria, their national rights
will be respected in full. By quietly assuming local authority, they
are hedging their bets. In the unlikely event that Mr Assad survives,
he will owe them a favour for staying out of the fight. Should he lose,
his successors will inherit a de facto Kurdish autonomous region much
like Iraq’s.

Schmidt Can’t Pay Ethic Panel Fines

asbarez
Thursday, August 2nd, 2012

Rep. Jean Schmidt

WASHINGTON – Embattled GOP Representative Jeanne Schmidt is having a
tough time raising funds for the roughly $500,000 that the House
Ethics Committee fined her to pay, reported Jordy Yager of The Hill.

The Ethics panel told Schmidt last August to repay nearly half a
million dollars in services she accepted from lawyers with the Turkish
American Legal Defense Fund (TALDF), but she has raised only $5,000 so
far.

In five months the Ohio Republican will leave Congress and will no
longer be required to pay back the money, according to people familiar
with the chamber’s ethics rules.

A spokesman for Schmidt did not return a request for comment. But
Schmidt’s office pointed to a legal expense fund that she established
as evidence that, `she wants to pay these bills,’ according to
previous remarks made to USA Today.

But according to the latest financial filing this week for the fund,
Schmidt did not raise any money from April through June to meet the
Ethics committee’s mandate. Schmidt paid down part of the legal debt
with about $43,000 earlier this year.

Read the entire article published in The Hill.

GOP Rep. Schmidt fails to raise funds to pay Ethics panel fines

By Jordy Yager – 08/01/12 04:34 PM ET

Since losing her primary election in March, Rep. Jean Schmidt
(R-Ohio) has failed to raise any of the roughly $500,000 that the
House Ethics Committee ordered her to pay.

The Ethics panel told Schmidt last August to repay nearly half a
million dollars in services she accepted from lawyers with the Turkish
American Legal Defense Fund (TALDF), but she has raised only $5,000 so
far.

In five months the Ohio Republican will leave Congress and will no
longer be required to pay back the money, according to people familiar
with the chamber’s ethics rules.

A spokesman for Schmidt did not return a request for comment. But
Schmidt’s office pointed to a legal expense fund that she established
as evidence that, `she wants to pay these bills,’ according to
previous remarks made to USA Today.

But according to the latest financial filing this week for the fund,
Schmidt did not raise any money from April through June to meet the
Ethics committee’s mandate. Schmidt paid down part of the legal debt
with about $43,000 earlier this year.

In its report to the Ethics committee last year, the Office of
Congressional Ethics (OCE) found that the Turkish Coalition of America
(TCA) paid lawyers with the TALDF `approximately $500,000 for legal
services provided to Representative Schmidt’ over a two-year period.

The Ethics committee declined to launch a subcommittee to officially
investigate Schmidt, which would have allowed the panel to sanction
the four-term lawmaker.

Instead, committee Chairman Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) and ranking member
Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) ordered Schmidt to `repay the improper
gift’ and authorized her to accept contributions through the `Jean
Schmidt Legal Expense Trust.’

The committee, in its report, said that Schmidt had cooperated
extensively with congressional investigators and was unaware that the
TCA had paid for her legal services.

`Given the evidence that Representative Schmidt lacked knowledge of
the arrangement, the committee does not believe that any sanction is
necessary,’ the report stated.

And while her actions technically violated House ethics rules, the
panel concluded that paying back the roughly $500,000 in services
would be sufficient punishment, and it authorized her to raise money
through her legal fund to help do so.

But the only outside contribution to the fund came in January from
Global Eclipse, a Delaware limited liability company that donated
$5,000. And though the Ethics committee approved the company’s
contribution, several of Global Eclipse’s top managers have Turkish
ties, which raised eyebrows in the press, considering the nature of
the allegations first levied against Schmidt.

Schmidt lost her reelection bid in March to GOP challenger Brad
Wenstrup, who made the shadow of the probe and other ethics questions
central to his campaign against the incumbent lawmaker.

The legal fees that Schmidt was ordered to pay back arose during a
lawsuit she brought in 2010 against her former Democratic opponent
David Krikorian, who she sued, accusing him of making false statements
about her during his campaign for the Ohio seat.

APA, Azerbaijan
Aug 4 2012

Armenia begins protective works on state border with Azerbaijan

[ 04 Aug 2012 13:10 ]

Baku. Rashad Suleymanov – APA. Armenia carries out protective works on
state border with Azerbaijan, APA reports quoting Armenian press.

According to information, new fortifications, different barriers are
created and the current defensive positions are being fortified. The
works are carried out at nights. The engineer units of the Armenian
Defense Ministry, staff of the Emergency Ministry, as well as workers
and equipments from neighboring villages are involved in the works.
The Defense Minister constantly arrives at the site: `According to the
servicemen, the mines, nets and signal systems are being set in the
danger zones. The incidents in June forced the Armenian Defense
Ministry to pay a lot of attention to this sphere.

The reportages of Armenian media outlets note that the residents of
villages neighboring with the state border with Azerbaijan are struck
with panic. According to military experts, if the military operations
start, Azerbaijan will strike from the state border and create a
threat for Armenia. After that Azerbaijan will split Armenian armed
forces and change the results of military operations in Karabakh for
its own benefit.

Turks outraged by Obama-Erdogan bat photo

August 4, 2012 – 13:13 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – A photograph of U.S. President Barack Obama holding
a baseball bat while talking on the phone to Turkish Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan was intended to show their close relationship, a White
House spokeswoman said, after the photo caused a stir in Turkey.

The two leaders spoke on Monday, July 30 to discuss the crisis in
Syria, after which the photograph of Obama seated at his desk, talking
on the phone while holding a bat autographed by black-American
baseball great Hank Aaron, was released by the White House.

“The photo reveals from whom our Prime Minister receives orders to
rule the country,” Metin Lutfi Baydar, a lawmaker with Turkey’s main
opposition party the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said in a
statement.

CHP vice president Umut Oran asked through parliament if Erdogan had
seen the picture and if he would take action against “an implicit
insult to Turkey and its citizens”.

Some newspapers took a more lighthearted view, with columnist Ahmet
Hakan of Hurriyet writing: “We need to do something – retaliation
seems to be the most reasonable method.”

“Our prime minister needs to hold something in his hand as he’s
calling Obama,” he added, suggesting as possible candidates a slipper,
a belt or a rolling pin.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a written statement on
Friday that her department had seen the commentary and speculation
about the photo in the Turkish media, Reuters reported.