Author: Maghakian Mike

PHONETHON LAUNCHED

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[08:15 pm] 15 November, 2006

Today the annual phonethon of pan-Armenian fund "Armenia" was
launched. The workers of the fund will phone about 1300 small,
medium and large companies in Armenia until November 17 and call
on them to have their donation to the program "Revival of Artsakh"
initiated by the fund. This year the gathered money will be used for
the realization of the second phase of the program – the development
of the Hadrout region of Artsakh.

On the eve of the telethon the Fund already gets donations from
individuals, organizations, banks, educational institutions and other
structures. The residents of not only the capital but also the regions
make donations.

Tomorrow the telethon will start in France. The main telethon which
will be broadcast live for all the Armenians throughout the world
will take place on November 23 in Los Angeles.

KIRO MANOYAN: ARMENIA CAN LEGALLY RETURN ITS HISTORIC LANDS

Public Radio, Armenia
Nov 16 2006

The Sevres Agreement is the only legal document, which can fairly
satisfy Armenia’s claims on its historic lands in international
structures, Head of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF)
Bureau’s Hay Dat and Political Affairs Office Kiro Manoyan said in a
press conference today. He agrees with the former Armenian Ambassador
to Canada Ara Papyan’s idea of returning the Armenian lands in a
legal way. "Ara Papyan’s approach is quite realistic, since according
to Article 89 of the Sevres Agreement, US President Woodrow Wilson
was entrusted to clarify the border between Armenia and Turkey and
he allocated more than 160 thousand sq. km to Armenia," he noted,
adding that the Agreement is a legal document.

Turning to the question of Turkey’s accession to the European Union,
Kiro Manoyan noted that it comes from the US interests. However,
it’s not in the authority of the US to suggest terms and requirements
of accession. "As far as the accession process is underway, and the
EU sets its requirements, the Armenian lobby has the right to demand
recognition of the Armenian Genocide and exert pressures on Turkey,"
said Kiro Manoyan.

SNOWFALL IN MID NOVEMBER

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[04:19 pm] 15 November, 2006

On November 14 at about 06:50 p.m. the communities of Mets Sepasar,
Poqr Sepasar, Ghazanchi, Tavshout, Sizavet, Bavra and Saragyugh in
Shirak region were deprived of electricity because of a heavy snowfall.

According to the Rescuers’ service, the electricity supply was restored
at 07:29 p.m.

By the way, "ArmHydroMet" informs there has been no snowfall today
in Shirak. Instead, it keeps snowing in Syuniq region.

RA AND AR FMS MET IN BRUSSELS

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
Nov 14 2006

November 14 a recurrent meeting of RA and AR FMs Vardan Oskanian and
Elmar Mammadyarov was held in Brussels.

According to the information DE FACTO got at the RA MFA Press Service,
the OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs had also been present at the meeting.

To remind, the Karabakh conflict settlement’s basic principles
suggested by the OSCE Minsk group are being discussed at the talks’
present phase.

U.S. DEFENSE MINISTER DOES NOT ATTEND TO WATER PIPELINES
10-11-2006
LRAGIR.AM

"A financial document cannot be magnificent, it is another survival budget
and pursues pre-election aims," stated Member of Parliament Victor Dallakyan
November 10. He thinks the estimation that the collections in 2007 will be
up by 70 billion drams are not realistic. If they are likely to fight black
economy, why they failed before, asks the member of parliament. Meanwhile,
with regard to the proposal of the government to allocate 710 million drams
to raise the salary of high-ranking officials in 2007 the member of
parliament does not ask questions but puts forward evaluations and
proposals. According to Victor Dallakyan, "This is electioneering, pledges
of the corrupt government to the officials, who will need to be highly
active in the election. This is an effort to use the administrative and
financial levers in electioneering, and immoral. The average pension is 12
thousand drams, and the high-ranking official’s salary may mount to 350
thousand drams."
Victor Dallakyan suggests saving this 710 million, cut the 860 office cars
twice, add this 2.5 billion drams and spend this 3.2 billion on social
policies, namely raise pensions, return the lost savings, medicaid, etc.
Victor Dallakyan announced in joke that even his wife is asking her not to
act against the proposals on raising the salary or pension of members of
parliament. The member of parliament resists.
Victor Dallakyan is worried by the disbalance of our budget and the
Azerbaijani budget, the comparison of other economic indexes. "The
settlement of Nagorno Karabakh has moved from the military to the economic
sphere, if the country is in a better political and economic state, it will
eventually dominate. Patriotism will be replaced by economic factors," he
thinks and speaks in numbers. Their military budget totals 1 billion
dollars, ours is 263 million. Our state budget is 1.2 billion dollars, their
economic growth is 34 percent, ours is 12.5 percent. From 2003 to 2007 their
state budget grew 8 times, ours grew 4 times. Azerbaijan’s oil revenues may
mount to an annual 7 billion dollars.
If we had built an Iran-Armenia transit pipeline, we could get 250 million
dollars from transit. But we will not because Russia used its "energy
truncheon" and a small-width gas pipeline is built. Unlike Serge Sargsyan,
Victor Dallakyan knows cases when Russia has used investments in the economy
for political tension. "The government is vulnerable because it is not
legitimate. And it is vulnerable in the relations with Russia. These
relations are vertical," stated Victor Dallakyan.
Victor Dallakyan also noticed that it is hard to imagine the U.S. defense
minister open a water pipeline in the state of Arizona.

AsiaNews.it, Italy
Nov 10 2006

Increasing Russian control of Iranian gas

Russia’s energy giant Gazprom takes over Iran-Armenia gas pipeline;
Russian government is interested in participating in
Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. From Moscow Iranian nuclear
negotiator threatens to review Iran’s ties with IAEA if Russian
amendments are not included in Security Council draft resolution on
his country’s nuclear programme.

London (AsiaNews) – Whilst Tehran is threatening to `re-examine’ its
relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) if the
United Nations accepts a draft resolution proposed by the EU3 group
(UK, France and Germany) without Russia’s amendments, Russia’s giant
energy company Gazprom is picking up energy deals. In the latest one,
it bought control in a gas pipeline project between Iran and Armenia.
The Russian government is also getting involved in another project
that would see a pipeline bring gas from Iran to Pakistan and India.
All in all, these plans are worth billions of dollars if one
considers that Iran, which holds 18 per cent of the world’s known
reserves, is second biggest gas supplier after Russia.

Gazprom raised its stake in ArmRosGaz, a company that controls both
Armenia’s domestic gas distribution business and the
soon-to-be-completed gas pipeline from Iran, to 58 per cent.

Last year it had signed an agreement with the Armenian government
under which Armenia would have to pay only US$ 110 per cubic metre of
gas or about half the market price. In doing so, Gazprom will run
Iranian gas supplies to Europe, rid itself of a potential competitor
and achieve near monopoly in gas supplies to Western Europe.

`We hope to use the joint venture to become involved in extraction
and development [of Iranian gas],’ Alexander Medvedev, deputy
chairman of Gazprom, told The Times. And there is a lot of extraction
and development to do. Analysts in fact believe that 62 per cent of
Iran’s potential gas reserves – estimated at 27,000 billion cubic
metres – remain undeveloped.

But that is not all. Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli
Deora said that Russia was keen to participate in all aspects of the
proposed multi-million dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline
project.

In a recent visit to Moscow, Mr Deora said that Russia’s Industry and
Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko expressed his country’s interest in
participating `in the technical and financial aspects of the proposed
Iran gas pipeline’

A final decision about this undertaking, with both Pakistan and India
as active participants, will be taken by the two governments and that
of Iran at a meeting yet to be scheduled but expected to be announced
in the next few days.

At the same time, Iran has made it clear that nuclear fuel production
will remain part of its energy strategy notwithstanding any
disagreement with the IAEA.

>From Moscow where he is currently on a visit, Ali Larijani, secretary
of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s top nuclear
negotiator, said that Iran would review its ties with the
International Atomic Energy Agency if the draft resolution presented
in the last few days by the United Kingdom, France and Germany was
approved.

Russia has for its part submitted some amendments to the draft
proposal, which calls for sanctions, whose effects would be to lessen
its punitive aspects.

Lragir, Armenia
Nov 10 2006

SERGE SARGSYAN WILL NOT MEET ARMAN BABAJANYAN’S REQUEST

The commission of the Ministry of Defense discussed the application
of Arman Babajanyan, Editor-in-Chief of the Time Yerevan Newspaper,
and rejected it. On November 10 the minister of defense Serge
Sargsyan stated this to news reporters.

Arman Babajanyan was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for
forging documents and avoiding military service. Babajanyan appealed
to the Court of Cassation and the case is on trial. At the same time,
the editor-in-chief of the Time Yerevan Newspaper submitted an
application to the minister of defense on applying the law on
pardoning persons who avoided military service in 1992-2005 if the
latter pay a certain sum.

`We have a written conclusion, which runs that the commission cannot
attend to a cases if there is already a decision of the court. The
commission cannot be superior to the court,’ stated the minister of
defense. According to him, the commission has never attended to cases
if there is already a decision of the court.

It should be noted that several days ago Arman Babajanyan’s attorney
stated in a news conference that the decision of the court has not
come into force yet because the case is tried by the Court of
Cassation, which means that Arman Babajanyan remains under
prosecution.

Aravot, Armenia
Nov 9 2006

THE OPPOSITIONISTS AND TIGRAN TOROSIAN ARE ENTHUSIASTIC

CC decision about disparity of "Electoral Code" to the Constitution
will face the opposition and parliamentary majority to an interesting
situation. It becomes clear that there is a lot of thing to do on
"EC" project, and the majority will have to work with the opposition,
and the opposition perhaps will think about not to sign for the joint
project. Yesterday we asked NA chairman Tigran Torosian about his
opinion about CC decision. Tigran Torosian tried to insert and
explanation. "CC wasn’t discussing disparity of "EC" project of
amendments to the Constitution, but the current "EC"’s, and more, the
judges have been included in the commissions after amendments in
2005. Some media today. But it isn’t so. Unfortunately, there is a
disparity in the current Constitution. One of the articles says that
the electoral commissions are state bodies but another article says
that the electoral commission mustn’t submit to state bodies or be
influenced by them. After constitutional amendments the formulation
about involvement of our judges in other activities is righter in our
Constitution than it was in the amendments adopted in 1995.
I think the CC decision is right and it must be fulfilled." Certain
solutions aren’t known yet but there are a lot of solutions in T.
Torosian opinion and they will speak about a certain solution after
"EC" project discussion. We noticed that opposition groups and
independent parliamentarians, those who have turned to the CC for
that purpose are rather enthusiastic and think that this is a
victory. T. Torosian said that he was also enthusiastic; "I think
Constitutional amendments affirm day by day that they include very
important items, which lead to essential changes in our life. It
becomes obvious today that we deal with a new demonstration; the
opposition’s opportunity to turn to the CC and have success there. I
think the opposition must feel sorry for its inadequate attitude to
the constitutional amendments". We reminded that Shavarsh Kocharian’s
‘EC" draft is also put into circulation in the NA where there is no
omission which exists in the joint project and whether it is possible
the parliament will review that draft. NA chairman said that the
parliament assumed very serious attitude to all drafts. The proposal
about involvement of judges into commissions was made and adopted in
2005. T. Torosian said on this occasion: "I myself have no
participation in the discussions of those amendments and when I saw
that the process of those amendments is turned into show, I said
about it the head of OSCE Yerevan office and the secretary of the
commission of Venice, still in 2005.
It’s interesting that both the opposition parliamentarians and
representatives of the majority are going to make proposals about the
amendments. The author of the initiative and the member of "Justice"
group Shavarsh Kocharian told us that the constitutional amendments
become operating and he is enthusiastic. In Shavarsh Kocharian
opinion, CC displayed a juridical approach and proved that the
Constitutional amendments were justified. He also said that all "EC"
items which refer to the involvement of judges, won’t act any more;
"This is a proper time to reach to the balanced commissions, and its
mechanisms exist in the "EC" draft.
It is possible to separate those mechanisms and to produce as
amendment, coming from CC decision. I hope this time the opposition
groups will unify,"- Shavarsh Kocharian said

Margaret Yesayan

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE TO HOAGLAND

Lragir, Armenia
Nov 9 2006

The U.S. Embassy to Armenia does not know when the new U.S. Ambassador
to Armenia Richard Hoagland will arrive in Armenia. U.S. Charge
d’Affaires Anthony Godfrey, whom Matthew Bryza describes as an
excellent diplomat, stated November 8 that the question on the timing
of arrival of Hoagland should be asked to the Senate.

Anthony Godfrey only stated that other candidates besides Hoagland
are not considered. The Charge d’Affaires also said that two months
without an ambassador does not affect the quality of the work of the
embassy because a significant team works at the embassy and a person
does not decide everything.

MINISTER OF SO-CALLED NAGORNO GARABAGH REPUBLIC RECEIVED IN GREECE OFFICIALLY

Azeri Press Agency
Nov 9 2006

The Foreign Minister of so-called Nagorno Garabagh Republic Georgi
Petrosyan visited Greece to participate in the ceremony held on the
occasion of 10th anniversary recognition of Armenian Genocide by
Greek Parliament, APA reports quoting to Regnum agency.

Greece Parliament vie-speaker Georgios Surlas received him together
with Vaan Ovannisian, the deputy chairman of Armenian parliament.

They thanked Greek Parliament for recognition of Armenian genocide
happened in1996. Surlas stressed that Ottoman Empire pursued policy on
ethnic cleansing of Armenians and Greeks. The sides also touched on the
Nagorno Garabagh problem and expand of Armenian-Greece relations. The
chief of Foreign Ministry Press and Information Policy Department
Tahir Taghizadeh said that Azerbaijani embassy will investigate the
case and appropriate measures will be taken.