Author: Karabekian Emil

ARMENIAN LEADER HAILS UAE’S GAINS

Gulf News
74471.html
Dec 13 2007
United Arab Emirates

Abu Dhabi: President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan
on Wednesday held talks with Armenian President Robert Kocharian,
who is currently on a state visit to the UAE.

Shaikh Khalifa welcomed the Armenian President and wished him a
successful visit that would contribute to developing bilateral ties
between the two nations.

They reviewed bilateral relations and cooperation between the
two countries, and ways to enhance them, especially in economic,
investment and tourism sectors.

The two leaders also exchanged views on a number of regional and
international issues of mutual interest, in the presence of General
Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy
Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

Wise leadership

Expressing his delight at visiting the UAE and meeting Shaikh Khalifa,
the Armenian leader indicated the great achievements made under the
UAE’s wise leadership, and placed it among the most advanced countries.

Kocharian expressed his deep gratitude and thanks to Shaikh Khalifa
for the warm welcome and hospitality he receives in the country.

He pointed out his visit came within the framework of both leaderships’
keenness to extend bridges of joint cooperation and coordination
between their nations in the best interest of their people.

Shaikh Khalifa hosted a lunch banquet in honour of the Armenian
President and his accompanying delegation.

MUTUALLY SUPPLEMENT

Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Dec 12 2007

Lets imagine Levon Ter-Petrosyan wins and comes to power with his
team. What position will he give to the leader of Marxist party
David Hakobyan?

As it came clear yesterday during his conversation with the
ex-President before the demonstration, they didn’t discuss this
issue. "I met Levon Ter-Petrosyan for the first time – for 20-25
minutes. And we didn’t touch the topic of bargaining on the positions,"
he underscored.

It also turned out that the principal Marxist doesn’t fear that after
coming to power Levon Ter-Petrosyan will neglect him. It can’t happen,
because L.T.P. "started the formation of his human resource bank
with me."

Besides that, allegedly, he is the head of "the new ideological
knights". Thus "we mutually supplement. Separately we are nothing.

But together we are everything." D. Hakobyan announced. By the way
with his "mentality" he has "never been the second fiddle". And today
when he is part of the "patriotic powers’ block" he considers himself
"equal to L. Ter-Petrosyan."

OMBUDSMAN VOUCHES FOR ARMAN BABAJANYAN

Lragir, Armenia
Dec 12 2007

The ombudsman of Armenia Armen Harutiunyan sent a letter to the chair
of the independent commission for conditional sentence and replacement
with milder punishment A. Yeritsyan, vouching for Arman Babajanyan.

He wrote that the working group of the human rights defender
visited the hospital of convicts on December 7, and met with Arman
Babajanyan. During the talk Arman Babajanyan said he has problems
with health and the administration of the hospital is considering
replacing imprisonment with conditional sentence.

Armen Harutiunyan’s letter runs that Arman Babajanyan’s behavior is
compliant, he has already served 1/2 of his sentence, and he can be
released early according to Article 76 of the Crime Code of Armenia
allowing for releasing a convict sentenced for minor offenses after
serving 1/3 of sentence.

MOSCOW COURT TO BEGIN TRIAL OF BOMBERS OF MARKET

ITAR-TASS
Dec 11 2007
Russia

MOSCOW, December 11 (Itar-Tass) – A criminal case on the blast at
Moscow’s Cherkizovsky market has come to the Moscow City Court, the
court’ s press service chief Anna Usachyova told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.

Lawyer Dimity Bakharev, who represents the interests of one of
defendants, said the "trial will be held with the participation of
a jury, about which all defendants had asked during the preliminary
investigation".

The blast at the market on August 21, 2006, killed 14 people, including
two children, and left 70 people injured.

Three university students were soon detained on suspicion of
involvement in the bomb attack.

The group is also thought to have on its record eight blasts in Moscow
in 2006 that went without causalities.

Investigators presume that the crimes were motivated by ethnic hate.

Eighth young people have been charged with involvement in the terrorist
acts, and of illegal possession of arms and explosives.

The prosecutors accuse them of staging, among eight blasts, a bomb
attack on the editorial office of the newspaper Russky Vestnik that
the defendants considered too soft-spoken about "persons of non-Slavic
ethnicity".

Some of the defendants have been accused of killing Armenian university
student Vagan Abramyants at Moscow’s underground station Pushkinskaya.

Most of the defendants were members of the unregistered group Spas
("Savior").

According to investigators, they had no political programme, but were
guided by ethnic bigotry.

The Moscow City Court is to set a date of a preliminary hearing.

RA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: CEC WON’T INVITE LONG-TERM OBSERVATION MISSIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.12.2007 19:22 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "The RA Central Election Committee will not invite
log-term observation missions for the presidential elections due
on February 19, 2008," CEC chairman Garegin Azaryan told reporters
Tuesday.

The CEC has decided to invite short-term missions only but this
doesn’t mean absence of long-term ones.

"The words of CEC Spokesman Bahchangulyan were misinterpreted by some
media, he said. The fact is that the CEC did not invite long-term
missions.

However, it doesn’t mean that there will be no long-term missions
at all. Besides the CEC, the President, government and parliament
are entitled to invite international observers," he said, Novosti
Armenia reports.

According to the CEC’s schedule the registration of observers will
last November 9-February 9.

"PERSECUTED" IN THE CENTER

A1+
[07:21 pm] 11 December, 2007

The residents of Teryan Street, which is being used for the state
needs, are persecuted every day.

11 families have remained of 63 families. "They intruded into the house
of one resident, without warning and destroyed the floor. They even
did not have an agreement with him. They ruined the roof of another
resident without warning. They deprived some residents from water. They
damaged the phone wires of the residents on 7 December and refused
to fix it motivating that in any case they would destroy the houses",
said Hrach Julhalakyan, the resident of 11 house on Teryan Street.

This area is given to "Dvin holding" by the Yerevan Municipality for
construction purposes.

"We are not against this decision, the center of the city should be
reconstructed", said Hrach Julhalakyan, noting that the state was
indecorous to them. "They left everything on "Dvin" and the company
is battling with the residents".

According to the residents, the company has paid much to some
residents, while it cannot come to a mutual consensus with
others. "They brought "Artin" company to evaluate the territory
without taking into account the residents. "Dvin holding" offers us
an agreement, which violates our rights", said Hrach Julhalakyan.

According to some sources, "Dvin holding" belongs to Robert Kocharyan’s
son Sedrak Kocharyan, who offers three versions to the rest of the
residents.

According to the residents, they offer less price than the market –
238-240 000 drams for 1 square meters, while the market price is 500
000 drams. "We will hardly be able to buy an apartment in the suburbs",
complained one of the residents Tereza Galstyan.

The other version is that the company offers apartments to the
residents on Mamikonyan Street in two years, the third version –
they offer the residents apartments in the same territory, that is
to say on Teryan Street in 4 years.

"We demand the draft of the house, but we are certain that it does
not exist yet. In one of his speeches the Prime Minister said to all
those who build new houses to give apartments to Yerevan citizens
then to do what the wanted to do. This is the fourth version, which
they do not want to accept", said Tereza Galstyan.

The residents demand the "Dvin holding" to pay the market price
or to allocate them apartments in compliance with the territory of
their houses.

The residents have appealed to many instances but received no definite
answer. "You do not know whether they will help the residents or not",
said Hrach Julhalakyan.

VTB PLEDGES $257 MILLION CREDIT TO ACP FOR DEVELOPMENT OF COPPER MINES

ARMENPRESS
Dec 10 2007

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS: Russia’s second-largest bank- VTB-
has pledged a $257 million credit to Armenian Copper Program (ACP)
for development of Teghut copper and molybdenum mine in Armenia’s
northern region of Lori.

VTB CEO, Andrei Kostin, said Saturday in Yerevan the deal was
unprecedented for a post-Soviet republic.

He said for the first time a Russian bank will release that big credit
without seeking funds from international lending organizations.

The ACP will have to repay the credit in 12 years.

Andrei Kostin said the VTB has assumed the entire responsibility for
the project worth $300 million and to mitigate the risks it will own
part of shares.

Teghut project is expected to become one of the biggest projects to
be implemented in Armenia. Experts estimate that the mine contains
1.6 million tons of copper and 99,000 tons of molybdenum.

ACP intends to extract more than 30,000 tons of copper and 800 tons
of molybdenum ores per year.

Experts say if the current price of copper-$7,000-8,000 per one
ton is maintained, the company may sell annually up to $270 million
worth products.

The project will create also 1,700 vacancies in the economically
depressed area.

HULIQ, NC
Dec 9 2007

Armenia comes the second at Junior Eurovision -2007 in Rotterdam

Armenia occupied the second position at the Junior Eurovision Song
Contest 2007 held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Only one point did not suffice to gain victory. Maximum 12 points
were given to Armenia by Georgia, Belgium, Russia, Romania, the
Netherlands and Ukraine. Sweden and Greece gave 10 points, 7 points
came from Belarus and 5 points Çé from Serbia.

Alexey Zhigalkovich from Belarus with the song S Druzyami (With
Friends) won the 2007 Junior Eurovision Song Contest. – By Public
Radio of Armenia

"AREVIK" was going to represent Armenia at Junior Eurovision Song
Contest 2007 for the first time ever on December 8th, 2007 in
Rotterdam (Netherlands)

Children¡¦s and youth pop-folk ensemble "AREVIK" under the
supervision of Armen Divanyan will perform a song at the Junior
Eurovision. Music is written by soloist, 15 years old Mariana
Javakhyan and lyrics by 13 years old Sargis Mzikyan. Soloists will be
the author of the music and also Anahit and Christine from Septetino
/ both 10 years old/.

Azat Artsakh Tert, Nagorno Karabakh Republic
Dec 4 2007

Separate groups of Karabakh’s population will get one-off financial
aid

During the next session taken place on Friday, the NKR Government, in
connection with Christmas Day and New Year, passed a resolution about
allocating to separate groups of Karabakh’s population with one-off
financial aid. Wholly about 91 million drams (about 300 thousand
dollars) would be allocated for this purpose, and citizens belonged
to seven groups would get the assistance. Particularly, 16 thousand
drams (about 53 dollars) would be allocated to each families of
killed azatamartiks and NKR Defence Army, invalids of the Great
Patriotic war and persons equalized them.

Azat Artsakh Tert, Nagorno Karabakh Republic
Dec 4 2007

Reception in NKR National Assembly

On December 3rd, the Speaker of NKR NA Ashot Ghoulian met with the
representative of Tutorial Fund of orphan girls visited Artsakh from
Greece with a cognitive visit Eva Calimnion and the member of
Armenian Trial’s committee in this country Khachik Khachatrian.
Welcoming the guests, the Speaker of NA expressed satisfaction in
connection with the philanthropic assistance, which the institution
always rendered Artsakh organizing every summer the rest of children
of killed azatamartiks in Greece. In her turn, Mrs Calimnion noted
readiness of the Fund being useful henceforth for Karabakh people.
During the talk, opinions were exchanged for completing the
assistance with new programs of philanthropic character and bringing
them to life round the ways and means. NKR Minister of Education and
Science Vladik Khachatrian assisted at the meeting. (Press service of
NKR NA reported).