Author: Maghakian Mike

FOOD COMMODITY PRICES GROW BY 5% IN ARMENIA IN JANUARY

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 2, NOYAN TAPAN. Prices of food commodities grew by
5% in Armenia in January 2007, which is by 0.1% lower than the index
of the same period of last year (5.1%).

According to the RA National Statsitical Service, a 0.1-29.5% price
growth was registered in 8 out of the 13 food commodity groups
observed. A 28.9% price growth was registered in the commodity group
of vegetables and potato in January 2007 on January 2006, mainly as a
result of a growth in the prices of garlic (30.5%), carrot (33.2%),
beet (36%), tomato (40.9%) and potato (60.6%).

A 29.5% price growth was registered in the commodity group of
vegetables and potato in January 2007 on December 2006, which is by
9.1% lower than the respective index of the same period of last year
(38.6%).

There was a growth in the prices of potato (10.8%), cabbage (11.6%),
beet (18.9%), carrot (20.4%), onion (23.7%), tomato (1.7fold),
cucumber (1.8fold) anf green pepper (2.1fold) in January 2007 compared
with the previous month.

There was a 29.1% growth in fruit prices in Armenia in January 2007 on
January 2006, and a 17.5% price growth on December 2006. In the
indicated period, prices of lemon, tangerine, pomegranate, pear,
apple, banana and pine-apple increased by 4.1-26.9%.

A 16.2% price growth was registered in the commodity group of fish
products in January 2007 on December 2006, mainly due to the 19.3%
growth in the price of fresh white fish. There was a 0.7% price
growth in the commodity group of meat products in January 2007 on
December 2006, mainly as a result of the growth in the prices of pork
(1%) and beef (1.6%).

A 0.1-0.9% price growth was registered in the commodity groups of
confectionery, soft drinks, coffee, tea, cocoa and milk products in
January 2007 on December 2006. The price of granulated sugar fell by
1.7% in the indicated period, while prices of bread products, eggs,
butter and vegetable oil remained at the previous month’s level.

Reuters , UK
Feb 2 2007

Turk police probe TV images of Dink murder suspect
Fri Feb 2, 2007 7:58am ET

By Paul de Bendern

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey launched an inquiry into footage showing a
teenager charged with the murder of a Turkish-Armenian journalist
posing with the Turkish flag and security officials after his arrest,
police said on Friday.

Hrant Dink was shot outside his Istanbul office on January 19. His
funeral drew 100,000 mourners on to the streets in protest at the
militant nationalism that apparently inspired his killer.

A 17-year-old unemployed youth, Ogun Samast, has confessed to the
murder.

Turkey’s leading television channels showed video footage of Samast
posing in front of a Turkish flag, and holding another flag next to
security officials dressed in paramilitary and regular police
uniforms shortly after his arrest on January 21.

The Gendarmerie, Turkey’s paramilitary police, denied reports the
footage was shot at one of their offices in Samsun, the city where
Samast was arrested after a nationwide manhunt.

Media said the images suggested Samast was treated like a hero.

"The pictures were shown on television in the evening (of Thursday)
and inspectors will clarify who took the pictures and why. We in the
police will do everything necessary," national police spokesman
Ismail Caliskan told a news conference.

"Whoever is responsible will be given the appropriate punishment."

Dink, 52, had been a hate figure for ultra-nationalists because of
his comments on the mass killing of Armenians on Turkish soil in
1915, still a highly sensitive issue in this European Union candidate
country.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has already questioned whether the
killing was the work of Turkey’s so-called "deep state" — code for
shadowy ultra-nationalist elements in the security forces ready, if
need be, to act outside the law.

"What appears on the video is in itself not new for Turkey. The
difference is that this time the media decided to publish it," said
CNN Turk diplomatic editor Semih Idiz.

"The implications of this scandal are enormous. It’s too early to
tell whether ministers will be fired."

Eight people, at least seven of them from the Black Sea province of
Trabzon, have been charged over the murder.

Authorities have been accused of failing to act on warnings that
ultra-nationalists planned to murder Dink. Opposition parties have
demanded the resignation of the interior minister.

Last week, the interior ministry dismissed the police chief and
governor of Trabzon and sent prosecutors to investigate whether local
authorities were at fault.

Liberal newspaper Radikal editor-in-chief Ismet Berkan said the
release of the video images was like killing Dink a second time. He
said it showed extreme nationalism in Turkey was again on the rise.

Pressure is mounting on the government to crack down on
ultra-nationalist groups, a tricky task in a year of presidential and
parliamentary elections.

(Additional reporting by Selcuk Gokoluk in Ankara)

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Jan 31 2007

TIME LIMIT FOR HOUSING’S PRIVATIZATION EXTENDED FOR A YEAR IN NKR

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic President Anoushavan Danielian
expressed dissatisfaction with the rates of the state and public
housing fund’s privatization.
According to the information DE FACTO got at the NKR government’s
press service, the Cabinet of Ministers had to render a decision to
extend the time limit for the housing’s privatization for a year.
539 flats have not been privatized in the Republic yet. The PM
charged the heads of the corresponding departments and city councils
to carefully study the reasons of the slow rates and elaborate the
specific mechanisms of accelerating the process of the housing’s
privatization.

GEM AND JEWELRY MAKING DEVELOPMENT AGENCY TO BE CREATED IN FEBRUARY

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 1, NOYAN TAPAN. It is envisaged that in February the
Armenian government will make a decision on creation of the Gem and
Jewelry Making Development Agency adjunct to the RA Ministry of Trade
and Economic Development. Gagik Mrkrtchian, Head of the Gem and
Jewelry Department of the ministry, stated this.

According to him, the agency will implement the 2005-2007 program on
Armenia’s gem and jewelry sector, which will help overcome the
two-year-long crisis in the sector. G. Mkrtchian noted that the agency
will first of all deal with the problem of legislative reforms. In
his opinion, the experience of the the United Arab Emirates where
considerable progress in the gem sector has been registered in the
past 5 years can be used in Armenia. "The matter concerns developing
the gem and jewelry sector by sharply increasing investments through
certain tax and customs reforms," he said.

According to him, the sector’s development in the UAE was also
encouraged by creation of free trade zones, which, in the words of F.
Mkrtchian, "is used by all countries that have a developed wholesale
market of rough and cut diamnonds." The formation of such conditions
is first of all conducive to development of small and medium
enterprises of the sector.

"Under favorable conditions 200-300 enterprises will be set up against
the current 30 licensed diamond cutting enterprises," G. Mkrtchian
noted, adding that there are many jewelry enterprises in Armenia, most
of which are small and medium ones. According to him, the number of
gem and jewelry enterprises in the UAE reaches a thousand.

The ministry official said that in late 2005, Armenia’s gem and
jewelry sector employed 4,550 people. In 2006, this number declined by
600.

Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS General Newswire
February 1, 2007 Thursday 6:16 PM MSK

Baku hails Moscow’s position on Nagorno-Karabakh

The Azeri Foreign Ministry has welcomed Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s statement that Moscow had been trying to help Baku and
Yerevan find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem

"Putin’s words are in unison with Azerbaijan’s approval of more
active efforts on the part the OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairmen,
including the Russian side," the Azeri Foreign Ministry’s official
spokesman Tair Tagizade told Interfax on Thursday.

"The co-chairmen’s role is not to impose a solution on anyone – this
is out of the question, and here we agree with the Russian president
– but to promote the search for a solution, just what they have been
doing," the spokesman said.

Earlier on Thursday, Putin told reporters in the Kremlin that it was
up to Armenia and Azerbaijan to find a solution on the issue of
Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Don’t shift this problem onto our shoulders. You must find a
mutually acceptable way out yourselves," the Russian leader said.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 31 2007

The old Erdogan and the new Erdogan

by SELCUK GULTASLI

What Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has been saying for the last
several days about the deep state and the need to fight against it
struck me as an honest confession. The style he has recently been
using reminds me of the Erdogan of 2002-2004 when he was dubbed
the greatest Turkish reformer since President Turgut Özal, possibly
since Mustafa Kemal.
Now he argues that we have paid dearly as a nation for not doing
enough to destroy the basis of the deep state. By `we’ he, of course,
means politicians. On his way to Ethiopia, Erdogan admitted that
as the executive branch, they were only able to dig to a certain
depth, implying that the judiciary and the legislative were not
always helpful with the excavation.
What should also be noted carefully are his remarks dating the
creation of the deep state back to the Ottoman Empire. I assume he
means the last 10 years of the Ottoman Empire, when the Committee of
Union and Progress toppled the government of Kamil Paşa on
January 1913 by a bloody coup and then ruled the huge empire, not
with laws but with lawlessness. This is why most of the cabinet did
not even know the Ottomans had sided with the Germans and entered
World War I, which marked the end of the empire. That is why the
Armenian deportation led to a disaster. That is why Istanbul learned
about the 90,000 troops who froze to death in 1915 at
Sarıkamış only after the end of the war, three years
after the calamity.
Turkey has had four military coups in the last 47 years and there has
not been one single general who organized and carried out the coups
brought to justice. The only reason many people support the EU bid is
the assumption that the process will let Turkey be a more transparent
state in which the government decides everything, from Cyprus to the
promotion of its generals.
However, I admittedly have some doubts whether the prime minister
will follow up to what he said on the deep state. That is why I am
talking about the Erdogan of 2002-2004 when he was the leader of
a party, which dared to fight against all the remnants of the deep
state.
I miss the Erdogan who he said he would support the Annan Plan
for Cyprus reunification despite enormous opposition at home, not the
Erdogan who calls on NGOs to agree among themselves to get rid
of Article 301.
I miss the Erdogan who went to Diyarbakır and publicly
declared that Turkey had made mistakes in its policies vis-à-vis its
Kurdish people, not the Erdogan who acquiesced to the sacking
Van prosecutor Ferhat Sarıkaya, who prepared the Şemdinli
indictment.
I saw glimpses of that Erdogan when he invited members of the
Armenian diaspora to Hrant Dink’s funeral, not when he though
carrying placards that read `We are all Armenians’ was not
appropriate.
We miss this Erdogan as a statesman but not as a politician,
particularly when we are heading toward two elections!

INGO ARMENIA OPENS FIRST FAMILY MEDICINE CENTER FOR INSURED PEOPLE

Yerevan, January 31. ArmInfo. The first commercial Family Medicine
Center will be opened in Armenia in Jan 2007, says the director of the
leading medical insurer of Armenia, Ingo Armenia, Levon Altunyan.

The Center will have modern medical equipment, particularly,
40-parameter hematological analyzer, ultra sound fat tester, digital
electro-cardiographer and ultra-sonographer. This equipment will allow
to make right diagnosis and to prescribe complex treatment. Family
doctors will provide first aid in neurology, ophthalmology,
gynecology, cardiology. The patients will be able to consult the
leading specialists of the country. Altunyan notes that family doctors
will show individual approach to their patients: they will not only
treat them but will also prevent diseases and propagate healthy
lifestyle.

One more advantage of family medicine is that all family members may
get doctor’s advice. The key goal of the Center is to provide
highly-professional medical assistance, to reduce treatment due to
effective diagnostics in line with the standards of WHO and the Health
Care Ministry of Armenia.

The clients of Ingo Armenia will be treated free of charge. "We are
opening this Center first of all for our own clients," says Altunyan.

The future of chess belongs to Armenian and Azerbaijani Grand Masters

ArmRadio.am
31.01.2007 15:28

Ex-World Champion Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), who won the Corus
International Chess Tournament held in the Dutch city of Wijk aan Zee
together with Levon Aronyan and Teymur Rajabov, said that the future
of chess belongs to Armenian and Azerbaijani Grand Masters.

`Rajabov is one of the strongest Grand Masters in the world. His style
is a Southern one, like that of Kasparov. I can say almost the same
about Levon Aronyan. The future of chess belongs to them,’ Topalov
said in an interview with `Sport Express.’

PanARMENIAN.Net

Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway construction to begin in June
30.01.2007 18:01 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Tbilisi, Baku and Ankara ignored `Armenian’ warning
of the U.S.A., Russian `Izvestia’ writes. The construction works of
the strategic Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway will launch in June 2007,
stated the Turkish Ministry if Foreign Affairs today. The MFA
underlined that on February 7 a trilateral frame agreement will be
signed in Tbilisi between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Turkish
premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be present at the signing ceremony.

`This project, which has strategic importance, will give new impulse
to regional cooperation. The Turkish side will participate in the
construction works with readiness. The railroad will stretch along
Turkish territory, southern parts of the Caucasus, Central Asia and
China joining with Europe,’ says the statement of Turkish
MFA. Authorities underline that according to the plan, the
Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway will be given to exploitation within two
years.

It is worth of special notice that the U.S. Congress banned American
banks to finance the construction of the railroad if it bypasses
Armenia. Washington’s uncompromising stance on the issue was once more
confirmed by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs Matthew Bryza. Particularly he stated that if
Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey want to build a railway bypassing
Armenia the U.S. cannot prevent them. But Washington will not assist
it either.

Monday Morning, Lebanon
Jan 29 2007

Turkey: Police probing ultra-nationalist leads in slaying of Hrant
Dink

Photo: A grave being prepared for Hrant Dink, the Armenian-Turkish
journalist whose life was devoted to promoting freedom of speech and
the reconciliation of Armenians and Turks

Turkish police have been focusing their investigation into the murder
of the ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink on alleged links between
the prime suspect and an ultra-nationalist group.

`We’re looking into the political aspect of the murder and possible
links with illegal organizations’, Istanbul police chief Celalettin
Cerrah told the Anatolia news agency.
A prosecutor said that the suspect, 17-year-old Ogun Samast, had
confessed to the murder on January 19 and newspapers quoted the
teenager as telling police he shot Dink because the journalist
`insulted the Turkish nation’.
Dink, 52, was a taboo-breaking critic of the official line on the
1915-17 massacre by the Ottoman authorities of Armenians, which he
labeled as genocide, and was given a suspended six-month jail
sentence last year for `insulting Turkishness’.
Nationalists branded him a `traitor’ and Dink wrote in recent
articles in his weekly Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos that he had
received threats.
Quoting sources close to the investigation, newspapers said police
were probing links between Samast and a small, extremist group in his
home city, Trabzon, on the Black Sea coast.
Samast told police he was told to kill Dink by a friend, Yasin Hayal,
who spent 11 months in jail for a 2004 bomb attack against a
McDonald’s restaurant in Trabzon.
`Yasin told me to shoot Dink. He gave me the gun. So I did’, the
mass-circulation Hürriyet newspaper quoted the teenager as saying.
Turkish newspapers described Hayal, also in police custody, as an
`older brother’ figure who frequently met youngsters in the area and
influenced them with his ultra-nationalist views.
Hürriyet said Samast, an unemployed secondary school graduate, was
among 10 youths aged 15 to 17 whom Hayal had last year trained to
handle and shoot small arms in order to assassinate Dink.
Apart from Samast and Hayal, police were questioning six other
suspects in connection with the killing.
Police conducted a re-enactment under heavy security of the murder
with Samast, which saw passers-by booing the teenager and calling him
a `disgrace’.
Showing no remorse, Samast reportedly told police that he first tried
to meet Dink in his office but was not allowed in by suspicious
staff. He said he waited in the street until Dink returned from a
nearby bank.
`I approached him from behind and fired shot after shot’, Samast was
quoted by the Vatan newspaper as saying. Dink died instantly after
being shot three times in the head and neck.
Samast’s testimony turned the spotlight on Trabzon, a Black Sea port
of one million and a hot-bed of nationalism, which hit the headlines
in February 2006 with the murder of an Italian Catholic priest by a
16-year-old boy.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the police would
look into possible links between Dink’s killing and that of the
priest.
Hated by Turkish nationalists, at times misunderstood by his kinsmen,
Dink was also admired by many in Turkey and abroad for his commitment
to dialogue and reconciliation between the two communities.
`Because he sought reconciliation through truth, he was hated by
hard-liners on both sides. He was a target’, said an editorial in the
English-language daily Today’s Zaman.
Dink risked attack not only by his use of the word `genocide’ but
also by defending in court other people who faced prosecution for
expressing their opinions, notably Nobel Literature Prize laureate
Orhan Pamuk as well as novelist Perihan Magden, who hailed Dink as `a
true patriot’ and `a man with a great heart’.
Born into a modest family in Malatya, Eastern Turkey, Dink moved with
his parents to Istanbul at the age of seven.
He studied philosophy and zoology and took various jobs, including
with the Armenian Church, running a children’s holiday camp and a
bookshop, before founding Agos in 1996.
He was buried last week at an Armenian cemetery in Istanbul after a
ceremony in front of the Agos offices and a religious service at the
Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul. A Turkish diplomat said that
Ankara had invited prominent Armenian religious leaders from around
the world to attend the funeral.
The issue has further poisoned ties between neighbors Turkey and
Armenia; Ankara recognized Yerevan’s independence in 1991 but no
diplomatic relations were established and the border between the two
has been closed since 1993.