Author: nina hovnanian

Iran’s electricity exports increase 32%
Economic Desk

On Line: 05 February 2013 15:38
In Print: Wednesday 06 February 2013

The Islamic Republic’s electricity exports to neighboring countries
have increased by about 32 percent since the beginning of the current
Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2012).

Iran has exported 9,688.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity over the
past 11 months, indicating a 32-percent increase in comparison to the
same period a year ago, when the country exported some 7,352.5 GWh of
electricity to neighboring states.

Iran is currently exchanging electricity with Afghanistan, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Turkey.

Earlier in February, Iran’s Energy Minister Majid Namjou said the
country was planning to export electricity to Syria and Lebanon
through Iraq’s power grid.

He said Iran is capable of exporting 1,000 megawatts (MW) of
electricity to Iraq, adding that Syria had also requested 500 MW of
electricity.

Seeking to become a major regional exporter of electricity, Iran has
attracted more than USD 1.1 billion in investments to build three new
power plants.

According to the Iranian energy minister, by the end of the Fifth
Economic Development Plan (March 2010-March 2015), Iran will boost its
electricity generation capacity by 25 gigawatts to reach 73 gigawatts.

Turkey turns into world’s biggest jail. CPJ

16:41, 16 February, 2013

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 16, ARMENPRESS: It is noted in the report of
`Committee to Protect Journalists’ international monitoring
organization (CPJ) that after detaining 49 journalists `Turkey is
turning into world’s biggest jail’. In the `Risk list’ of the
organization, Turkey stands among Brazil, Ecuador, Iran, Pakistan,
Russia and Vietnam. As reports Armenpress, referring to the web site
of Turkish T24 channel, in accordance with the report, 43 journalists
were killed when implementing their professional duties during 2012,
which is for 43 percent more than during previous year.

ANCA: Azerbaijani authorities try to divert attention from anniversary
of Sumgait events by its hostile agitating campaign

13:53 16/02/2013 » SOCIETY

On the eve of the anniversary of Sumgait pogroms, Armenian National
Assembly of America (ANCA) issued a statement in which was said that
Azerbaijani government is trying to divert attention from the
anniversary of the Sumgait events by its hostile agitating campaign.

`The Azeri government, which has been spreading a virulent
disinformation campaign agitating for war by condoning the slaying of
Armenians, as with the pardon of the murderer Ramil Safarov who axed
to death an Armenian officer in his sleep at a NATO Partnership for
Peace training exercise in Hungary, and ramping up tensions along the
ceasefire line, is aiming to distract attention from the upcoming 25th
anniversary of the atrocities that mark the beginning of the pogroms
against Armenians in Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh,’ the statement
says.

Twenty-five years ago, in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait (Sumgayit),
longtime Armenian residents were brutally targeted on the basis of
their ethnicity and subjected to unspeakable crimes. According to a
March 1988 article in The Economist, “reports of atrocities, including
the murder and mutilation of pregnant Armenian women and newborn
babies in a maternity hospital, have not been denied. Other reports
speak of gangs of young Azerbaijanis hunting down Armenian families
and committing murder, rape and robbery.” The Azeri government never
saw to the punishment of the perpetrators, the ANCA states.

The Assembly mentions that February 28, 2013, marks the 25th
anniversary of the pogroms committed by the Azerbaijani authorities
against its Armenian population and the beginning of the escalation of
violence against the Armenian minority across the entire country of
Azerbaijan and against Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh, culminating in
the violent expulsion of 200,000 Armenians from the Azeri capital city
of Baku in January 1990.

`Despite the Azeri government’s assertion that the violence was due to
spontaneous riots, the pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad (now Ganja),
Baku, and elsewhere, were a retaliatory attempt to silence and thwart
the rights of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh who lawfully
approached their government on the basis of a new openness in Soviet
society ushered in by President Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost and
perestroika,’ the statement says.

It says that, instead of respecting the legal rights of Armenians,
Azeri mobs targeted Armenians as a group and subjected them to gross
human rights violations reminiscent of practices and policies
resulting in the attempted annihilation of the Armenian population in
neighboring Ottoman Turkey earlier in the century.

`The Sumgait pogrom was widely reported and roundly condemned, but the
violence was never contained. Increasingly anti-Armenian forces acted
with impunity and the pogroms spread across Azerbaijan leading to the
military campaigns of the late 1980s to 1994 to deport the Armenians
of Nagorno Karabakh until a ceasefire agreement was signed by
Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh, and Armenia,’ the Assembly reminds.

The statement notes that Hidayat Orujev, a leader of the Communist
Party of Azerbaijan, days before the massacre of Armenians in Sumgait,
stated in an address to the governing Council of the Nagorno Karabakh
Autonomous Region: “If you do not stop campaigning for the unification
of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia, if you don’t sober up, 100,000
Azeris from neighboring districts will break into your houses, torch
your apartments, rape your women, and kill your children.”
The Organization says that Mr. Orujev was appointed State Advisor for
Ethnic Policy by the late President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan and
head of Azerbaijan’s State Committee for Religious Affairs by current
President Ilham Aliyev.

`The Sumgait pogroms are a reminder of the need to respect the ethnic
and cultural identity of all people without discrimination and
violence,’ concluded the Assembly in its report.

Source: Panorama.am

Head of Rossotrudnichestvo Office in Armenia: Modernization of
Byurakan Observatory will cost over 6.5 mln EUR

ARMINFO
Friday, February 15, 19:43

Russia will allocate over 5 mln EUR and Armenia – 1.5 mln EUR for
modernization of the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory, Viktor
Krivopuskov, Head of the Yerevan Office of the Federal Agency for the
Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and
International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), said on
Feb 15.

He said that the modernization will be completed by late 2013.
Krivopuskov added that three specialists of the Byurakan Astrophysical
Observatory are on work experience at the Kislovodsk Astrophysical
Observatory.

To remind, Russia and Armenia started implementing a joint project on
near space monitoring in August 2010. The Byurakan Astrophysical
Observatory of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences and
Proekt-Tekhnika signed a Memorandum of Intentions. The customer from
the Russian party is Roskosmos. The Keldysh Institute of Applied
Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences also participates in
the project.

Persecution over Akram Aylisli in Azerbaijan and threats against him
brought international condemnation

10:48 16/02/2013 » SOCIETY

Azeri writer Akram Aylisli who is hounded for his ‘pro-Armenian’ book
Stone Dreams telling the truth about the massacres of Armenians in
Azerbaijan, brought about international condemnation, the article of
the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reads.

His books have been publicly burnt. He has been stripped of his
national literary awards. And a high-ranking Azeri politician has
offered $13,000 (£8,400) as a bounty for anyone who will cut off his
ear. But 75-year-old Akram Aylisli, one of Azerbaijan’s most eminent
authors, does not regret having written his short novel Stone Dreams.
The book has shocked many Azeris. But could it also prove the first
tentative step towards peace with the country’s longstanding enemy
Armenia?

“I knew what I was writing. They say I offended the nation. But I
think quite the opposite: I think I have raised my nation up,” he told
the BBC by phone.

“I could predict they would be unhappy. But I could never have
predicted such horrors, such as calls for a writer to be killed, or
his book to be burnt. It is very sad that our nation is humiliating
itself in this way. A country that can burn books will not be
respected by the rest of the world,” the writer said.

BBC says that the book describes Azerbaijan’s conflict with
neighbouring Armenia through the 20th Century. But it details the
massacres of Armenians by Azeris, portraying the tragedy of war from
Armenia’s perspective.

The article says that Azerbaijan is still traumatised by losing both
the war in the 1990s and almost 20% of its territory – the disputed
region of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent areas. So depicting Azeris as
perpetrators is shocking enough. To entirely leave out accounts of
Azeri suffering is for many unforgiveable.

`After the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, Azerbaijan and
Armenia fought a brutal war in which both sides suffered enormously,
with up to 30,000 people killed and a million forced to flee their
homes. Today, despite a tenuous ceasefire, the two countries are still
locked in conflict, with dozens killed every year,’ the article says.

However, according to BBC, even some of the book’s critics, such as
Azeri opposition activist Murad Gassanly, condemn the persecution of
its author.

“With the exception of ultra-liberal circles, very few people actually
liked the book or its message. However, the book burnings, street
protests and calls for violence against the author were orchestrated
primarily by pro-government circles. There is no freedom of assembly
in Azerbaijan – it is impossible to gather and collectively read
books, let alone burn them! The fact that these protests were allowed,
protected by police and then shown on national state TV suggests that
they were orchestrated from the top,’ he explained.

BBC notes that President Ilham Aliyev himself signed the decree
stripping Aylisli of his national awards and monthly literary stipend.
Ruling party parliamentarians demanded he leave the country or that
his DNA be tested to see if he was really Azeri, and not in fact
Armenian. And high-ranking government officials called him a traitor,
saying “public hatred” was the correct response. Aylisli’s wife and
son both lost their jobs in state-controlled institutions.

`The calls for violence against Aylisli – echoing Iran’s notorious
fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie – have sparked strong
condemnation from abroad,’ the article says.

`Many analysts believe the vitriol against the author was an attempt
by the authorities to divert attention from a wave of anti-government
protests, which had swept the country in January. There are signs that
increasing numbers of Azeris are dissatisfied with the growing
disparity between rich and poor under President Aliyev, who faces an
election in October. And members of his government are accused of
corruption,’ the article says.

“It’s not unusual for the government to find a common enemy and unite
around it,” said Giorgi Gogia from Human Rights Watch. “And it’s not
the first time that freedom of information and free speech are under
attack.”

According to the article at least five journalists critical of
Azerbaijan’s government are currently behind bars, on what human
rights activists describe as trumped-up charges. `And in January two
well-respected opposition politicians, one of whom intends to run in
October’s presidential elections, were arrested, accused of organising
anti-government protests. They are being held in pre-trial detention,
which in Azerbaijan can last more than a year. If found guilty, they
could face years in prison,’ the BBC writes.

Stifling free speech not only quashes political dissent. The fear is
that it could also be harming Azerbaijan’s chance of ever making peace
with Armenia. `This book tackles the issue which needs to be discussed
in society: looking at the past,” says Mr. Gogia, who believes Aylisli
was extremely brave by being the first high-profile Azeri author to
show sympathy towards victims from the other side.

“Freedom of speech applies not only to those ideas that are
favourable. But even more so to those that shock and offend,” he said.
Aylisli believes that peace can only be achieved by kindness, not with anger.

Source: Panorama.am

ARMENIE
La construction d’un nouveau btiment à la place du Palais de la
Jeunesse pourrait commencer au printemps

La construction d’un nouveau btiment à la place du Palais de la
Jeunesse pourrait commencer au printemps a annoncé l’architecte en
chef d’Erevan Narek Sargsyan.

Le btiment de vingt étages du Palais de la Jeunesse d’Erevan placé
sur une colline pittoresque et ayant gagné une récompense
architecturale a été privatisée et acheté par la société Avangard
Motors, le distributeur officiel de Chrysler et Daimler, en janvier
2004. Le btiment a été démolie en 2004 car il ne répondait pas aux
standards internationaux.

L’architecte en chef d’Erevan a dit que la construction est retardée
parce que le projet japonais qui a gagné l’offre il y a deux ans
envisage la construction de deux btiments de 150 mètres et 90 mètres
respectivement.

« À l’époque la Municipalité d’Erevan a donné un permis pour la
construction, mais hauteur projetée a été changée à 122 mètres et 70
mètres respectivement. L’entrepreneur a refusé d’être d’accord avec le
changement » a dit l’architecte en chef ajoutant que la municipalité
est contre la construction de btiments de très grandes niveaux dans
la ville.

L’offre internationale de construire un centre d’affaires à la place
du palais de la jeunesse s’est tenue en janvier 2010. Environ 1 145
architectes de 71 pays (incluant la Russie, le Japon, l’Arménie, les
Etats-Unis, la France, la Grèce, l’Espagne, l’Italie et l’Allemagne)
ont participé à l’appel d’offre.

« Actuellement des négociations sont en cours pour changer les
standards de construction exigés par les designers. J’espère que nous
réussirons à atteindre certains accords en hiver et commencer des
travaux de construction déjà au printemps » a dit l’architecte en chef
d’Erevan.

samedi 16 février 2013,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

REVUE DE PRESSE-MARSEILLE
L’exposition des caricatures de Krikor Amirzayan et Sarkis Paçaci dans
La Provence

Le journal La Provence en date du vendredi 15 février 2013 consacrait
un article à l’un des évènements marquants de la semaine auprès de la
communauté arménienne de Marseille, l’exposition des caricaturistes
Krikor Amirzayan et Sarkis Paçaco au Centre culturel Sahak Mesrop.

Le quotidier marseillait revenait ainsi sur le vernissage des oeuvres
de Krikor Amirzayan et Sarkis Paçaci samedi 9 février en présence d’un
très large public.

L’exposition des oeuvres de Krikor Amirzayan et Sarkis Paçaci qui a
été visitée par des centaines de personnes se poursuit jusqu’à ce
soir.

samedi 16 février 2013,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

ARMENIE-ECONOMIE
La société de tracteurs arméno-chinoise « Zinvan » exporte sa
production vers la Géorgie

Les tracteurs de marque « Zinvan » montés en Arménie ont du succès.
Samvel Nadjarian, le responsable technique de la coopérative agricole
« Zinvan » a affirmé que ces tracteurs d’une puissance de 25 à 95
chevaux. Vendus entre 8 et 22 000 dollars suivant le modèle, ces
tracteurs qui sont produits depuis 2003. « Nous avons produit près de
700 tracteurs et plus de 1 500 outils agricoles » dit Samvel
Nadjarian. Il affirme que les tracteurs peuvent être utilisés dans les
travaux agricoles mais également pour d’autres fonctions comme le
nettoyage des espaces publics. L’Arménie a exporté nombre de ces
tracteurs vers la Géorgie. Les tracteurs « Zinvan » appartient à une
société arméno-chinoise. L’usine se situe sur l’ancien site « Electron
» de Vanatsor.

Krikor Amirzayan

samedi 16 février 2013,
Krikor Amirzayan ©armenews.com

EurasiaNet.org, NY
Feb 15 2013

Armenia: Unusual Campaign Reaching Predictable End

February 15, 2013 – 11:37am, by Marianna Grigoryan

The outcome of Armenia’s February 18 presidential election already
seems assured, but the campaign has been anything but ordinary.

Compared with Armenia’s hotly contested 2008 presidential election,
which featured post-vote demonstrations and clashes that left 10
people dead, this year’s campaign has been a ho-hum affair. But the
lack of energy does not appear to concern the odds-on favorite,
incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan.

`Elections should not turn into a struggle for life,’ Sargsyan said in
a February 15 interview with the Russian-language news site Kavkazsky
Uzel. `Each candidate should clearly acknowledge that this [vote] is
not the main goal of his life … that the world does not end with
this.’

So far, many of Sargsyan’s six presidential challenger have tried to
make the most of their time in the spotlight, striving to raise their
name recognition (if not publicize their policy positions) in a
variety of `surprising’ ways for Armenian politics, noted Manvel
Sarkisian, a political analyst from the Armenian Center for National
and International Studies.

The most sensational event in the campaign was the shooting of one the
challengers, Paruyr Hayrikian. The ensuing drama of whether or not
Hayrikian would seek a postponement of the election added a dollop of
suspense and to the process.

Other candidates have vied for attention in unconventional ways. For
example, Andrias Ghukasian, a 42-year-old radio-station manager, has
been on a hunger strike for nearly three weeks, camping out in a tent
near the presidential residence. His shelter bears a poster
proclaiming `Stop the Fake Elections!’

Meanwhile, Vardan Sedrakian, a candidate who describes himself as a
specialist in Armenian epic poetry, has spoken about `supreme forces,’
apparently of divine origin, which urged him to run for president. And
then there’s 50-year-old Arman Melikian, a former de-facto foreign
minister of the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh territory, who has
dismissed the validity of the election in which he is running.

The breakout candidate of the campaign has been California-born
candidate Raffi Hovhannisian, leader of the Heritage Party. He has
adopted a man-of-the-people image, prompting him to make a variety of
unusual campaign appearances, including getting his hair cut at an
ordinary barber shop, eating bread and cheese with a pensioner on a
street bench and riding the Yerevan subway with the masses. Such
candidate behavior may rank as par for the course in the United
States, but, in status-sensitive Armenia, it has struck many as
bizarre.

`[F]or our society, such techniques are unacceptable,’ commented
political-campaign analyst Armen Badalian, with a huff. `If you start
an election campaign, you have to be familiar with the local way of
thinking and make PR moves that won’t be mocked by society, to say the
least of it.’

But the strategy appears to have paid at least some dividends:
Hovhannisian ranks as Sargsyan’s closest, though still far-behind,
challenger, according to opinion polls. A survey by MPG Armenia named
Sargsyan as the choice for 68 percent of 1,080 adult respondents,
while 24 percent expressed a preference for Hovannisian. The remaining
candidates each fell under the 5 percent mark.

Throughout the campaign, Sargsyan has benefited from incumbency. In an
election report February 7, the observation mission of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights noted a lack of distinction
between Sargsyan’s campaign activities and the use of public funds,
officials or facilities. Voter complaints about inaccurate voter lists
also persist, the report noted.

That lack of a robust rivalry appears to have prompted Sargsyan to put
aside the grandiloquent pledges and pop-music shows of 2008, and adopt
a tell-it-as-he-sees-it approach, analysts believe.

During a January 29 campaign appearance in the village of Movses,
along the Azerbaijani border, Sargsyan did not mince words when he
responded to local complaints about unemployment and emigration. `Is
it my fault that your sons left Armenia?’ he asked, media reported.
`So, that’s why the cucumbers aren’t growing well.’

On the thorny issue of Armenia’s recognition of Karabakh’s
independence, an idea championed by Hovhannisian, the president, a
Karabakh native and war veteran, was similarly direct. `At the present
moment, greater adventurism [than recognizing Karabakh’s independence]
could not exist,’ he scoffed in Yerevan on February 12, news agencies
reported.

Apparently, the effect of such interactions on his electoral support
is not a concern. At another meeting, held on February 9 in a village
in the northwestern Shirak region, Sargsyan, in response to a
pro-opposition TV reporter’s question about his chances at the polls,
asserted that he could win as many votes as he wanted, media reported.

`He knows that he will take office again, that the results of the poll
will be whipped up again and that he will go on in the same work,’
commented campaign analyst Badalian.

Faced by what, to many, appears more like a carnival of candidates
than a campaign about policy issues, some voters declare themselves
too disillusioned to care. `Unfortunately, neither the elections nor
the election campaign play a role in our country,’ asserted
28-year-old Emma Babaian, a computer programmer in Yerevan. `In
Armenia, the results of elections have always been predictable, so we
just don’t want to cast a vote.’

Editor’s note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based in
Yerevan and editor of MediaLab.am.

EurasiaNet.org, NY
Feb 15 2013

Armenia, the World’s Least-in-Love Country?

February 15, 2013 – 8:54am, by Giorgi Lomsadze

In news that might come as a surprise to fans of French-Armenian
crooner Charles Aznavour, Armenia has ranked at the very bottom of
global love rankings released by the Washington, DC-based Brookings
Institution on Valentine’s Day.

The love survey, run by the Gallup Organization, asked respondents in
135 countries if they had experienced love the day before; the most
negative responses came from Armenia. Its neighbors, Georgia and
Azerbaijan, are not the world’s most amorous places, either.

Georgia is only three countries — Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan
— ahead of Armenia on the love chart. Azerbaijan sits in the
similarly love-starved 126th place.

The survey’s analysts tried to track a connection between the wallet
and the heart, but while richer countries tend to be more love-prone,
the Philippines and Rwanda rank as the two countries the most in love.

So, if money’s not it, what’s the reason for Armenia’s lack of love?
Could communism have something to do with it?

With the exception of Morocco, the ten most loveless countries all
share a Soviet past.

Whatever the case, governments and international development agencies
should take note. Looks like it’s time to devise national love
policies, provide tax privileges for lovers and, even, love grants to
encourage grassroots activity.