Author: nina hovnanian

Radikal, Turkey
June 21 2013

How Will Erdogan be Seen by History?

by Cengiz Candar

I see how Tayyip Erdogan has fallen today from a shining 10-year
performance as prime minister as “Shakespearean tragedy.”

One very influential and important foreign journalist said, “My last
question; so Erdogan is not going to go down in history as the great
reformer then?”

“He might,” I answered. “But only if he makes a dramatic turnaround
from where he is now. Given his nature as I know it I do not think
this is particularly likely. His Gezi performance has been so bad that
like President of the Republic Gul said, it is as if he managed to
demolish in 10 days all the gains they had made by scraping with their
bare hands over the past 10 years. But if he continues in this vein he
will go down in history with an entirely different description. Right
now he is on a knife’s edge. He could fall to one side or the other.”

The question that was put to me the other day is clearly one that is
being asked a lot in the West these days. The editorial in the
Financial Times Enhanced Coverage Linkingthe Financial Times -Search
using:Company ProfileNews, Most Recent 60 DaysCompany Dossieron 12
June posed that question and left it open to debate. The title read:
“Erdogan’s Stubbornness Jeopardizes his Legacy.” The following spot
heading was included: “The prime minister’s behaviour is ruining
Turkey’s regional image.”

This section from the editorial grabs the attention: “Erdogan’s
ambition to slide from the prime ministry, which he occupied for 10
years, to an empowered presidency and then occupy that office for 10
more years until the 100th anniversary of the Republic is jeopardizing
the important gains he has made thus far. Turkey’s image as a
reformist regional power and its troubled relationship with the EU are
in even greater peril. The short-term capital, which is vulnerable to
all kinds of dangers, and the hard-won economic stability could all go
up is smoke if the prime minister continues to clash with anonymous
speculators and capital groups.

“Erdogan undertook a brave gamble in order to end the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) [Kurdistan People’s Congress, KGK] 30-year
rebellion that has cost 40,000 lives. This peace initiative has forced
Turks to reevaluate the Kemalist republic’s intolerance of minorities
in general and the Kurds in particular. But it will be difficult to
see how the prime minister can broaden freedoms for the Kurds while
curbing them for the rest of the population.

“The numbers favour Erdogan on the streets and in any election on the
horizon. There is no doubt that he will steam-roller ahead. But in
that case he will be at the head of a country where both his own image
as well as the social fabric has been damaged. He is more Putin than
Ataturk. This Turkey of Erdogan’s will no longer be the country
admired for an outstanding decade under his tenure as prime minister.”

Exactly one week after this editorial in the FT another British paper
the Guardian on 19 Jun published an extremely remarkable
“psycho-analytical” article called, “Erdogan’s Fall From Grace, a
Complete Shakespearean Tragedy.” It begins: “Set aside some time to
ponder for a moment a man’s personal tragedy, one that very few people
have been able to acknowledge while all the protests are taking place
in Turkey: Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Up until three weeks ago Erdogan was
certain to go down in Turkey’s history alongside Ataturk and Suleyman
the Magnificent as one of its greatest reformers despite all the
rowdiness and tumult of the past three years.”

It continues: “What we have here is a man with the power to tackle
Turkey’s centuries-old disputes with the Kurds, the Armenians and the
Greeks, and govern his country into a peaceful, prosperous and
democratic future as a model not only for Muslim countries but for all
other rising economic powers trying to shake off their imperfect
pasts.” It does not forget Erdogan’s success in defeating the
“military tutelage” either. Hinting at the events of the past three
weeks it clearly states, “If this had happened in pre-Erdogan Turkey
there would have been a military coup by now.”

The “Shakespearean tragedy” part of this affair is seen in these sentences:

“The power that concentrated in him when defeating the generals -power
that he obtained both correctly and by committing fouls -plus that war
paranoia has not been good for him. Within just a few days Erdogan has
come to embody the fully corrupt despotism and violence of the old
Kemalist Turkey, which he was elected to clean up.

“The irony of it is that this is all Erdogan’s doing. His rule was so
powerful that only Erdogan could ruin Erdogan. He did this himself by
turning an insignificant protest in a tiny park into a state of
national emergency.”

My evaluation of Tayyip Erdogan is broadly the same. I have known him
for more than 20 years. Unlike what some people might think I have
never been close to him, let alone among those closest to him. Not
really. However, I have been wracking my brains without any prejudice
towards Tayyip Erdogan and by noticing that he has some very important
leadership qualities. I have kept a constant eye on him. I have tried
to understand him. I have tried to make him understood in all four
corners of the globe with the aim of demolishing all the negative
prejudice against him. Nobody can deny the positive contributions he
has made to Turkey in the past 10 years.

And indeed nobody is denying them. For example, in an article by
Daniel Dombey in yesterday’s Financial Times Tayyip Erdogan’s positive
contributions to Turkey over the past 10 years were listed figure by
figure. It is precisely because of this that I regard Tayyip Erdogan’s
fall from a brilliant decade as prime minister to where he is today,
his “dangerous ambitions” and the situation he is in today because of
the Gezi Park protests as a “Shakespearean tragedy.”

Meaning, these are “dangerous times” now. And just like the Guardian
said, only Tayyip Erdogan could have done this to Tayyip Erdogan. This
is because the power that Tayyip Erdogan had amassed was comparable
only to that held by Kemal Ataturk or by Ismet Inonu during the
single-party-rule period in our history. Adnan Menderes did not have
this kind of power. Opposite Menderes was an opposition leader like
Ismet Inonu. And for the coup there was clearly an army lying in
ambush on 27 May 1960.

There is no-one to oppose Erdogan. There is no person who can present
an alternative to him, no political party and no army threatening a
coup. He has an incredible power monopoly in his hands. It is for this
reason that I have never given credence to his “lieutenants” and his
“advisers.”

Powerful politicians like Tayyip Erdogan surround themselves with “yes
men” who are usually nothing and who will never amount to anything.
There is no-one within Erdogan’s “inner circle” that can raise
objections, no “adviser” that can “tell him what is right” when
necessary. His “advisers” are people who would be nothing were it not
for Tayyip Erdogan. These people are not in the least bit important.
They are a dry crowd of “yes sir” people. What matters is Tayyip
Erdogan, who has amassed an amazing power monopoly.

This Tayyip Erdogan appears “to be on the decline” while not losing
any of his ruling authority, and in fact while being able to rally
tens of thousands of people and keep on roaring. There is now debate
as to how he will go down in history, and what words will be used to
describe him. This is the real tragedy.

The article I quoted above reads: “It is clear that Erdogan has
adopted the methods used by the generals he defeated. His response to
the Gezi crisis was straight out of the old Kemalist coup handbook:
brutality, black propaganda, conspiracy theories and a whole lot of
bad intent.” This accurately reflects Erdogan’s current “tragic”
situation, does it not?

Besides, it does say, “We are witnessing a Shakespearean tragedy in
its purist form” adding, “But this one threatens to turn into a
national disaster.”

The person who penned those lines judges that “the broad coalition
that brought the AKP [Justice and Development Party] to power might
well have ended forever.” They spoke with a textile merchant from
Kayserii at the weekend. He sent his employees to the Tayyip Erdogan
rallies by bus but his daughter, who wears Islamic headdress, is not
talking to him because he supports the prime minister. Not a day goes
by when they are not arguing in the home. The Guardian writer asks
this Kayseri textile merchant whether or not he supported changes to
the constitution that would make Erdogan a French or Russian-style
president.” This pro-Erdogan textile merchant from Kayseri changed his
tone and answered:

“We cannot make this man the president. Not now. Tayyip would ruin us all.”

That is the prediction of one of his key supporters concerning his
work for the decade to come.

Meaning?

Meaning, Tayyip Erdogan’s situation is a “tragedy.” But now that he is
in this situation, to afford him another 10 years of absolute rule by,
to quote him, increasing the powers of the police could turn into “a
tragedy for Turkey.”

[Translated from Turkish]

Voice of America
June 21 2013

Nagorno Karabakh Cleans Up Old Conflict, Fears New One

James Brooke
June 20, 2013

STEPANAKERT, NAGORNO-KARABAKH – At this week’s G8 summit, the leaders
of France, Russia and the United States called for a peaceful
resolution to the long running dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan
over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Almost 20 years after fighting stopped over Azerbaijan’s breakaway
Nagorno-Karabakh province, this mountainous land still holds its
deadly secrets – anti-tank mines, anti-personnel mines and cluster
bombs.

Nick Smart, Nagorno-Karabakh program manager for Halo Trust, leads a
team of 190 men demining this remote province, an area controlled for
almost a quarter century by ethnic Armenians.

“We are still 20 years on and finding perfectly functioning mines that
are still killing people,” Smart said of his work that is largely
supported by money from USAID. “The ones that we are finding that are
in good order are in very good order, you know, and probably will
remain so for another 10 years.”

Since the year 2000, Halo has cleared 75 percent of known minefield
and cluster bomb areas in Nagorno-Karabakh. Experts have discovered
and detonated about 66,000 bombs.

But the walls of Halo’s office display photos of villagers who are amputees.

With only 160,000 inhabitants, Nagorno-Karabakh still has one of the
world’s highest per capita rates for mine accidents.

“The biggest problem remains in these green areas, these areas outside
of traditional Karabakh,” said Smart. “Now this is fertile farmland,
strategically important during the war, but now remains very
attractive farm land to the rural communities.”

In Nagorno-Karabakh, lowland farming fields inevitably stretch toward
security zones, where armed Azeris and armed Armenians face each other
across trench lines.

On Tuesday at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, the leaders of
Russia, France, and the United States urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to
abstain from war and to find a peaceful solution. But also on Tuesday,
Russia’s Vedemosti newspaper reported that Russia is selling $1
billion in tanks, artillery and rocket launchers to Azerbaijan.

In Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, Richard Giragosian directs the Regional
Studies Center, a think tank. He worries about the fragile peace.

“We have our own arms race in this region, where both sides are
compelled to keep pace with increasing defense budgets, as well as
procurement of more offensive weapons,” he said.

The Times, UK
June 21, 2013 Friday 11:19 AM GMT

Accidents of Birth: The extraordinary tale of mtDNA haplogroup R30b
has lessons for us all

The future King of England is partly Indian. However that statement
affects Anglo-Indian relations – and it can hardly hurt them – the
fact that it can be made with confidence speaks volumes about the
power of science in the age of genetics to illuminate our history.

Genetic genealogy can solve personal mysteries by linking individuals
to vast extended families they did not know they had. It can answer
the yearnings of the uprooted for clues about their roots. It can
support (and undermine) grand theories of human migration, and it can
debunk prejudice with findings so startling that no sensible fiction
writer would make them up. What we now know about the Duke of
Cambridge’s lineage is almost as significant for his future subjects
as it is for him.

It was already known when Lady Diana Spencer became the Princess of
Wales that one of her 32 great-great-great-great-grandmothers was a
women of supposedly Armenian extraction who lived out of wedlock in
Bombay in the second decade of the 19th century with a Scot named
Theodore Forbes. Her name was Eliza Kerwak. What was not known until
one of her many non-royal descendents, Robin Dewhurst, agreed to a DNA
test was that whether or not Eliza was partly Armenian, she was
definitely at least half-Indian.

Only genetics could reach so far back with such impressive certainty.
Eliza’s ethnicity can be deduced because Mr Dewhurst’s DNA contains a
rare genetic marker that, in the early 19th century, was found only in
South Asia. That marker consists of a tell-tale cluster of
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Like all mtDNA, haplogroup R30b passes
between generations from mother to daughter and mutates slowly and
steadily enough for scientists to trace its odyssey through time and
space with great precision.

That odyssey began millennia before the Derwak-Forbes liaison in
Bombay, meandering across hundreds of generations and millions of
lines of descent. As scientists follow more markers across human
history, they are creating the ultimate family tree – a tangle of data
that fills in gaps left by conventional genealogies, but also by
conventional archaeology and anthropology.

The identification of Richard III’s skeleton beneath a Leicester car
park this year was a spectacular case of DNA sleuthing in the service
of historians. But it can also help adopted children to trace their
biological forebears. It has been embraced by immigrant communities in
the United States to chart the long journeys undertaken by their
grandparents’ and previous generations; and by African Americans
determined to know precisely where their ancestors were taken into
slavery.

Genetic genealogy can serve as a corrective to alarmists who claim
certain markers predispose all humans to disease; in fact they seldom
apply across all populations. It can also torpedo the dangerous
bigotry of race-based theories of intelligence. The truth is we are
all, to a greater or lesser degree, genetic mongrels.

As the tools of genetic analysis find mass markets, the price of
self-knowledge at this cellular level is falling fast. The more people
embrace it, the greater the number of connections they will discover
with each other. Rodney King once asked: “Can’t we all get along?”
With a little help from DNA, it may not seem so impossible.

ITAR-TASS, Russia
June 21, 2013 Friday 08:18 PM GMT+4

Ukraine to hand over BSEC chairmanship to Armenia

KIEV June 21

– The Chairmanship-in-Office in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation
(BSEC) organisation will be handed over from Ukraine to Armenia. This
was declared upon the results of the meeting of the BSEC Foreign
Ministries Council that completed in Odessa on Friday.

Taking part in the meeting were representatives of Azerbaijan,
Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, Romania, Serbia,
Turkey and Ukraine. The participants in the forum considered in detail
prospects for the development of cooperation in the Black Sea region,
including that in the spheres of economy, transport and the
environmental protection.

“The participants in the meeting noted that in the period of Ukraine
chairmanship-in-office in the organisation was given an impetus for
the development of the economic interaction,” Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister, who headed the Russian delegation in the forum, Vasily
Nebenzya told Itar-Tass. “Over the past six months, the economic and
transport ministers of the BSEC countries met to discuss large
infrastructure projects in the region,” he said.

In his words, the participants in the meeting considered some elements
of the program, which Armenia plans to fulfil in the period of its
BSEC chairman-in-office. In particular, a special attention will be
paid to the development of information technologies, transport
problems in the region and security aspects in the BSEC zone.

The Deal Magazine, Australia
June 21, 2013 Friday

Let’s get serious

by GLENDA KORPORAAL

THE NEAR CERTAINTY THAT JOE HOCKEY WILL BE FEDERAL TREASURER AFTER THE
SEPTEMBER ELECTION IS CHANGING PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF HIM – AND THE
MAN HIMSELF.

Joe Hockey has just landed in Devonport on a Thursday morning. The
shadow Treasurer is visiting from Canberra the day after giving his
budget reply speech to a packed Great Hall at Parliament House. So
strong was the interest that the event had to be moved from the
traditional venue at the National Press Club. Afterwards, Hockey took
questions on his views about the budget, tax reform, the federal
bureaucracy and even gay marriage.

“How do you think it went?” he asks the deal over the phone from
Tasmania, where he is touring a manufacturing plant with Opposition
Leader Tony Abbott. “It was a huge crowd. It was sold out, apparently.
There were a lot of people there I had never seen before.”

The man expected to be Treasurer after September 14 – barring a very
improbable turnaround – had spent days in his office earlier that
week, working on his response to incumbent Wayne Swan’s likely last
budget.

“It was a really hard speech to write. As you get closer to the
election, it gets harder. On the one hand, you are meant to write for
The Daily Telegraph and, on the other, you are meant to write for the
boffins. If you are the Treasurer, you have the budget papers to back
up what you are saying. But if you are the shadow Treasurer … ”
Finance Minister Penny Wong had been on radio that day criticising
Hockey for not giving enough detail about the Coalition’s plans, while
another media commentator had criticised him for revealing too much.
“I thought to myself: Crikey, you can’t win.”

>From Tasmania, Hockey will fly home to Sydney to spend time in the
North Sydney electorate he has represented for 17 years and see his
wife, former investment banker Melissa Babbage, and their three young
children. Then he will travel to Melbourne for weekend functions and
back to Canberra on Sunday night.

As the certainty of a Coalition win grows, more people are trying to
get a fix on Joseph Benedict Hockey, 47, the financial lawyer turned
politician who will be one of the key figures in a new government.

The youngest son of Palestine-born Richard Hokeidonian, who is of
Armenian and Arabic descent, and an Australian mother, Beverley,
Hockey’s name and face are already familiar. Yet there is increasingly
the sense that something has changed. People are noticing not only his
slimmer look – a stomach-reduction operation has helped him shed 20
kilograms – but also a new seriousness in his approach to the job.

The man who ran for the presidency of Sydney University’s Student
Representative Council in 1987 by offering free beer is becoming more
determined, more focused. And rightly so. After all, Hockey expects to
inherit a budget deficit considerably worse than the official estimate
of $18 billion, economic growth weaker than budget forecasts of close
to 3 per cent a year, a Treasury department whose reputation has taken
a battering with business and the financial markets, and a nation
mired in what he calls “an age of entitlement”, with oversized
expectations that the government is there to solve everyone’s
problems.

Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein has known Hockey since he
was at Sydney University, where Hockey studied arts and law, played
rugby and met Abbott. “[Joe] was a larger-than-life personality, fun
to be around and always happy to have a beer and a chat,” he recalls.
“He had a great interest in people and politics right from the start.
He quickly found a place on the SRC where his campaign continued the
time-honoured university tradition of free beer for his supporters.”

Freudenstein, too, has noticed the recent change in his friend. “Joe
was an excellent minister in the Howard government, but there’s an
even greater level of seriousness about him now. He has spent
considerable time talking to the business community and mastering his
brief.”

Brian Tyson, former local head of global public relations and lobbying
firm Kreab Gavin Anderson, says the business community firmly supports
the Coalition, but is keen to know more about its strategy. “In
Hockey, they see an affable and engaging personality who is warming to
the task ahead,” he says. “He is clearly one of the best performers
and brings senior cabinet minister experience to what will be a very
challenging role.”

Hockey is certainly a relaxed and experienced media performer, his
skills honed in many breakfast TV duels with former prime minister
Kevin Rudd. Yet his easygoing manner belies a fierce determination
that those about to deal with him as Treasurer ignore at their peril.

A few weeks before the budget, the deal is in Hockey’s Canberra
office. After some official photographs are taken – the Liberal Party
is keen on shots of its new-look shadow Treasurer – Hockey suggests
having lunch in the sunshine. So we head to a small courtyard nearby.

Hockey is keen to remind people about his lengthy career in business
and politics and that he will bring nine years’ experience as a
federal minister to the position of Treasurer.

“I was a junior minister for finance and assistant to [former
treasurer] Peter Costello,” he says. “No one who has become Treasurer
has had that experience. Peter Costello never did, Wayne Swan never
did, Paul Keating never did, Bill Hayden never did … I lost my
training wheels years ago.”

In 1998, then prime minister John Howard picked the 33-year-old Hockey
as his minister for financial services, a role with oversight of the
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Australian Securities &
Investments Commission, Australian Competition & Consumer Commission
and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Hockey was minister for small business and tourism from 2001 to 2004
and minister for human services from 2004 to 2007. In the latter job –
with the second-largest number of staff, after the Defence Department
– Hockey had oversight of Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support
Agency. He restructured Medicare and reduced its head-office staff by
several hundred. At the start of 2007, with a tough election due later
that year, Howard gave Hockey the politically tricky workplace
relations portfolio, partly on the strength of his media skills. That
post elevated him to cabinet.

Before claiming the seat of North Sydney in 1996, which includes the
lower north shore where he grew up, Hockey was a financial lawyer with
Corrs Chambers Westgarth. He worked on the privatisations of the State
Bank of NSW and the Government Insurance Office and was an adviser to
NSW premier John Fahey in the early 1990s.

He has a wide range of contacts in business and politics. Other
university friends include Football Federation Australia’s David
Gallop and indigenous leader Noel Pearson. Former John Fairfax group
general manager Bob Falkingham and former Coles Myer chief Bevan
Bradbury are among his mentors.

Hockey’s business connections include John O’Neill (a former chief of
the State Bank of NSW and the Australian Rugby Union and now chairman
of casino company Echo Entertainment), ASIC chief Greg Medcraft (the
pair met when Hockey worked on the securitisation of David Jones’
credit-card business with Medcraft, who was with investment bank
Societe Generale), former ABC chairman Maurice Newman, investment
banker Ken Allen, former NSW premier Nick Greiner and Sydney Olympics
bid leader Rod McGeoch.

Hockey is only too aware of the easy criticisms levelled at him in the
past. Sloppy Joe. “I’ve copped it all the time,” he says with some
emotion. “He’s lazy, they say. People should look at my travel logs
over the years … You can’t climb the ladder and be lazy in politics.
Howard wouldn’t have made me a minister after only two years in
parliament and given me all the hard jobs if I was lazy.”

But he has noticed that the treatment of him by others has changed
since his stomach operation – for the better. Or perhaps his decision
to have the operation was part of a broader change in himself.

Hockey is emphatic when asked to name his most important mentor – it’s
his father Richard, born in Bethlehem and educated in the Old City of
Jerusalem and who arrived in Darwin in 1948, at the age of 21, with
nothing and built a successful small business selling real estate on
Sydney’s lower north shore. “My father has been my lifetime hero,”
Hockey says. “He speaks six languages and has skills I haven’t got.”

Richard settled in Bondi, where he opened a delicatessen and married
Beverley, the young beauty down the road. They later crossed the
bridge and set up a delicatessen in Chatswood, where Joe, the youngest
of four children, was born. After moving to Naremburn, they
established the real estate business that is still there today.

The Hockeys purchased the property next door and several others, but
the early 1970s recession threatened their livelihood. Hockey
remembers his mother saying the whole family had to pitch in and
somehow the business survived.

Hockey’s parents worked so hard that they could never take time off to
see young Joe play weekend sport, something he recalls with emotion.
But they scraped together enough so that he could attend a good
Catholic school, St Aloysius’ College at North Sydney, and study at
Sydney University. While his parents were working, the young Hockey
became friendly with Falkingham, who lived close by and taught him all
about the business of newspapers and advertising and how to buy
shares.

Hockey’s brothers still run the agency from that next-door corner
property, while the original premises are the electorate office of NSW
Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian. Friends say Hockey regards the
42-year-old Berejiklian, who is also of Armenian descent, as a younger
sister. It could be a significant relationship after the election.

As a young man, Hockey also bought shares and real estate and his
family property portfolio includes a farm in Queensland and houses in
Sydney’s Hunters Hill, Canberra’s Forrest and Stanwell Park, south of
Sydney. Despite that success, the fierce determination of Richard,
migrant and small businessman, still drives his son.

Hockey has a busy first-term agenda: abolition of the mining and
carbon taxes; a financial system inquiry; a review of government
spending and service delivery; a parliamentary standing committee to
review the Australian Taxation Office and the tax system; a budget in
surplus “as quickly as possible”; eliminating the Clean Energy Finance
Corporation; cutting federal debt; a Productivity Commission review of
workplace relations laws, with recommendations to be taken to the 2016
election; and tax-reform policies to take to the same election.

And he has a clear message for the electorate: “Don’t come to the
government to solve all your problems. Start by trying to solve them
yourself.” He says the Coalition won’t go into the election promising
a bucketload of goodies. “We won’t make promises we can’t deliver. We
will live within our means. We will be prudent without being austere.”

And while puns such as “Swan song” are getting plenty of use in the
media, Hockey remains extremely wary of overconfidence, or even the
perception of it. “[We’re] just getting on with the job, not getting
ahead of ourselves. I want to emphasise that.”

______________________________

>> Glenda Korporaal is the editor of the deal.

Armenian government allocates about $720,000 to restore Sanahin Monastery

June 22, 2013 | 12:23

YEREVAN. – Together with Haghpat Monastery, Sanahin Monastic Complex
is included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, and the Government
of Armenia allocated 300 million drams (approx. $719,937) for its
restoration.

Mkrtich Minasyan, Head of the Union of Architects of Armenia, noted
the abovementioned during a press conference on Saturday.

`A daily attention should be paid so we may prolong the life of the
monuments. But all monuments need daily attention, especially when the
state does not have so much money,’ Minasyan added.

In his words, the proprietors need to take good care of the monuments.

He also stressed that PM Tigran Sargsyan is interested that the
restoration is carried out in the best way possible.

When you exclude the possibility of weakening the position of monopoly

June 21 2013

The mistake comes from the previous government. The Russian gas which was
supplied to Ukraine by German RWE company is $ 100 cheaper than gas
supplied by the `Gazprom’. Such statement was made by the Prime Minister of
Ukraine Nikolai Azarov during a meeting with French businesses
representatives. Azarov said that the long chain of intermediaries,
contrary to the logic, only reduces the price for Russian gas, in
comparison with the direct supply from Russia. `We now buy gas from RWE, it
passes through Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. We are buying that gas cheaper
than the Russian gas, which we buy at the border with Russia, RWE sell to
us the same gas, which the company is buying from Russia. The gas passing
through the long chain of pipelines, comes back to us becoming 100 dollars
cheaper’, – said Azarov. This information is interesting on the background
of the `gas’ chaos in Armenia. Yesterday, the Minister of Energy Armen
Movsisyan confirmed that they are negotiating with `Gazprom’ on the
information to concede the shares. The Government of Armenia will end up
the negotiations with the Russian `Gazprom’ company by the end of this
month, during which, as it turned out, despite the rise in gas prices, the
possibility of conceding the last 20 % of shares owned by the Republic of
Armenia in the `ArmRusGasArd’ to `Gazprom’ company is also discussed. But
what is behind the government of Armenia in exchange for the 20 percent of
share, Armen Movsisyan refuses to detail noting that it will hamper the
negotiations. `The shares to transfer to `Gazprom’ company are sitting on
the table, of course, we will find the right equivalent solution to obtain
>From them’, – said Movsisyan, without denying that the alternatives are
also discussed. Starting from July 7, cubic meter of gas one instead of the
current 132 will cost 156 drams for citizens. Due to rising gas prices, the
cost for electricity will increase by AMD 8 to 1 kilowatt per hour. At one
time, Armenia had 45% of share in the company, but the local authorities
handed it over to the Russian side. Now the possibility of transferring the
last 20% again to the company is discussed. That is, if it becomes a
reality, `ArmRusGasArd’ will no longer be an Armenian-Russian joint
venture, it will become a Russian company, which will possess Armenia gas
supply chain. What is expected to our society if the last 20% of the shares
is conceded to `Gazprom’? For example, the Russian side does not intend to
raise the price of gas supplied to Armenia every year, it is conditioned
with the fact whether Armenia’s authorities justify this-and-that
expectations of Russia in non-economic issues, or not =85 The Minister of
Energy said on this occasion,- `The issue is not so raised that next year
they can do whatever they want. The negotiations are held not because they
can do whatever they want, but to have a long-term better gas supply.’ The
authorities are also silent on the issue of whether the idea of giving one
hundred percent of management possibility to `Gazprom’ occurred with the
authorities of the Armenian side or the Russian side. However, the Minister
Energy made one issue clear, in the issue of just gas supply, there is no
compulsion for Armenia to enter the Eurasian Union. It seems that if the
compulsion was there, they should confess. To say that with its 20 per cent
of shares the Armenian side, in the negotiations with the Russian side,
could extract crucial decisions for the benefit of our society, of course,
would be a naivety. It is clear for everyone that the mistake comes from
the previous Government of Armenia. If there is no alternative in any
field, we must be ready for any surprise. And if the Russian side having
even the monopoly position decides to sell gas for a cheaper price, again
the question arises, as to what for it becomes cheaper=85. Consequently,
transferring the entire gas supply network of Armenia to the Russian
company incorporates serious risks to all aspects, regardless of whether
the Russian side will raise or lower the price for gas. In the result of
the policy implemented by the former President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan,
the most importance strategic facilities, including almost the entire
energy system was given to Russia. Moreover, the authorities were found so
`smart’ that they transferred the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline of already
small diameter to the Russia, excluding the possibility of weakening the
Russian position of monopoly. But despite everything, one should also
notice the political trend in this whole process, after summing up the
phases of three elections in Armenia, the Russian side plays more openly.
And as long as there are leverages and even in the areas where the Russian
side is in a monopoly position, the resistance will be more difficult. But,
as people say, we must think about it in time.

Emma GABRIELYAN `Aravot’ Daily
Read more at:

revue de presse
Turquie : l’autoritarisme à courte vue de M. Erdogan

Les partisans de Recep Tayyip Erdogan peuvent plastronner : en
quelques heures, les 15 et 16 juin, la police turque a fait place
nette dans le centre d’Istanbul, faisant disparaître toute trace des
deux semaines d’occupation de la place Taksim et du parc Gezi. Sur
place, de la protestation spontanée et utopique provoquée par
l’annonce de la destruction du parc, il ne reste plus rien. Si ce
n’est davantage de policiers qu’à l’accoutumée, installés là pour
dissuader les opposants de revenir.

La fermeté affichée depuis le début de la crise par le chef du
gouvernement turc a pour l’instant payé. La majorité
islamo-conservatrice (AKP) au pouvoir n’a pas tremblé. Elle était
soutenue par une large fraction de l’opinion publique. En outre, elle
bénéficie d’une situation économique très enviable (5,1 % de
croissance en moyenne depuis 2003) ; enfin, elle a su jouer de
l’instabilité politique à ses frontières, en particulier en Syrie, qui
renforce l’aspiration de la population à la stabilité.

Le vice-premier ministre, Bülent Arinç, a même pu, lundi 17 juin,
menacer de faire intervenir les forces armées, en plus de la police et
de la gendarmerie, contre les contestataires. Le message était sans
ambiguïté : démontrer que cette institution, gardienne d’une laïcité
intransigeante et naguère principale opposante de l’AKP, est désormais
bel et bien rentrée dans le rang.

Il reste que le raidissement du pouvoir face aux critiques
européennes, ses diatribes contre `la finance internationale`, accusée
de vouloir le déstabiliser, autant que les violentes dénonciations
d’une jeunesse de `vandales`, `immoraux`, qualifiés de `gangs de
terroristes` par le premier ministre lui-même, cachent mal l’impasse
dans laquelle s’est enfermé le gouvernement.

Celui-ci paraît n’avoir d’autre perspective qu’une politique toujours
plus autoritaire et conservatrice. Première prison au monde pour les
journalistes (76 d’entre eux sont actuellement incarcérés, selon les
ONG), la Turquie gouvernée par l’AKP semble accentuer chaque jour le
tournant répressif qu’elle a opéré en 2011. Sourde aux aspirations
d’une classe moyenne qui connaît un spectaculaire développement, elle
n’offre pour seul horizon que des constructions de mosquées et de
nouvelles interdictions.

Les manifestants de Taksim ne gagneront peut-être pas dans les urnes,
lors des élections municipales de 2014. La contestation qu’ils portent
est sans doute trop multiforme pour se transformer en alternative
politique. Le nationalisme laïque des kémalistes ne se marie pas
facilement à l’extrême gauche, et les mouvements séparatistes kurdes
restent prudents, car ils n’ont rien à gagner à un retour à l’ordre
ancien. Mais, dans leur surprise de se trouver soudain si forts et si
nombreux, les jeunes manifestants de Taksim pourraient bien avoir
trouvé la promesse d’un autre avenir et d’une victoire future.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan serait donc bien inspiré de maîtriser sa force et
de se garder de tout triomphalisme : les traces du message des
occupants du parc Gezi ne disparaîtront pas toutes par la magie des
camions de nettoyage.

Editorial du `Monde`

samedi 22 juin 2013,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

ARMENIA
Dzulakentron will increase its production of alloys of ferrous and
non-ferrous metals up to 8 million tonnes

Armenian society Dzulakentron plans to increase the production of
alloys of ferrous and non ferrous metals up to 8 million tonnes
against 6.8 million tonnes two years ago announced its CEO, Artak
Meltonyan.

He noted that the company has paid all accumulated after the 2009 debt
crisis. In 2012, she produced and sold for 4.15 billion drams
products, an increase of 50% over the previous year.

The plant currently has 325 employees with an average salary of
245,000 drams. During the first three months of 2013, the company
produced 710 million drams of products is 17 percent higher than a
year ago and sales reached 925 million drams or 57 percent more than
during the same period in 2012.

Saturday, June 22, 2013,
Stéphane © armenews.com

EVENEMENT A MARSEILLE
Charles Aznavour reçoit « la Grande médaille de la Ville de Marseille » PHOTOS

La venue de Charles Aznavour le vendredi 21 juin était
l’évènement-phare de la Semaine de l’excellence franco-arménienne qui
se tient du 17 au 23 juin à Marseille, organisée par Terre d’Arménie
présidée par Richard Findykian. Des centaines de fans massés devant la
Mairie de Marseille, attendaient la venue de la légende de la chanson
française. Accompagné de son producteur Lévon Sayan, Charles Aznavour
entrait à la Mairie sous les applaudissements du public. L’ambassadeur
de la chanson française -et l’Ambassadeur itinérant d’Arménie- était
reçu dans les salons d’honneur de la Mairie par le sénateur et maire
de Marseille, Jean-Claude Gaudin. Ce dernier était accompagné de
nombreuses personnalités et élus. Parmi elles, Hranouch Hagopian, la
ministre arménienne de la Diaspora, S.E. Viguen Tchitétchian,
l’Ambassadeur d’Arménie en France, Vartan Sirmakès, le Consul Général
de la République d’Arménie à Marseille accompagné de Levon Davdyan le
vice-consul, le 1er Adjoint Roland Blum, la députée Valérie Boyer,
Didier Parakian, l’Adjoint au Maire et président délégué de
Marseille-Arménie, Daniel Hermann, l’Adjoint délégué à la Culture,
Garo Hovsépian, Conseiller régional Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur.
Varujan Vosganian, Ministre de l’Economie de la Roumanie, ainsi que
les gouverneurs de la région du Lori et Kegharkounik en Arménie
étaient présents. A noter également la présence de très nombreuses
personnalités arméniennes du monde culturel et associatif. Dans son
discours, Jean-Claude Gaudin salua « l’artiste, le chanteur, le
comédien, l’homme de c`ur, l’homme engagé, l’homme de conviction ». Il
retraça le chemin de l’intégration des Arméniens à Marseille et en
France. Il affirma une nouvelle fois sa prise de position ferme sur la
reconnaissance du génocide par la France dont il fut l’un des plus
grands défenseurs. Jean-Claude Gaudin salua également l’apport des
Arméniens à la France avec Charles Aznavour qui est l’un des plus
illustres exemples. Puis il remit « la Grande médaille de la ville de
Marseille », Capitale Européenne de la Culture 2013. Une médaille
exceptionnelle remise pour la dernière fois en 1947.

Jean-Claude Gaudin remit par ailleurs la Médaille de la Ville à son
producteur, Lévon Sayan. Charles Aznavour remercia la Ville de
Marseille pour cette distinction ainsi que le public. « Ce n’est pas
donné à tout le monde d’être aimé du public. Etre aimé
chaleureusement, c’est assez rare » confiait Charles Aznavour. Une
réception suivit la cérémonie. Charles Aznavour accordant par ailleurs
divers interviews aux médias venus très nombreux, dont « Les Nouvelles
d `Arménie Magazine ». Entouré de Lévon Sayan, Richard Findykian,
Didier Parakian et de quelques autres membres de l’organisation de cet
évènement, Charles Aznavour a patiemment répondu aux très nombreuses
questions des journalistes.

Krikor Amirzayan texte et reportage-photo à Marseille

samedi 22 juin 2013,
Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com