Author: nina hovnanian

Armenian opposition activists protest

news.am
August 13, 2012 | 17:59

YEREVAN. – Opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) activists Areg
Gevorgyan, Vahagn Gevorgyan and Sahak Muradyan, whose criminal cases
were closed, released a statement.

`Our friends Tigran Arakelyan, Davit Kiramijyan, Sargis Gevorgyan
following the Aug. 9, 2011 events were sentenced for 2 to 6 years of
imprisonment, while criminal cases instigated against us – Areg
Gevorgyan, Vahagn Gevorgyan and Sahak Muradyan – were closed due to
lack of proofs. Those verdicts are usual political persecutions, which
have nothing to do with justice, law or logic. We again claim to be
decisive and, despite the risk of appearing in jail, struggle for our
friends’ freedom and failing the regime, which implements political
persecutions,’ the statement reads.

Famous Armenian clown monument in Tsakhkadzor

news.am
August 13, 2012 | 18:54

TSAKHKADZOR. – New monument to eminent clown Leonid Yengibarov opened
in Armenian City of Tsakhkadzor on Aug. 13.

The idea of raising the monument was first mentioned by the Mayor of
Tsakhkadzor Garun Mirzoyan. The mayor covered all the expenses, thus
insuring the privilege of hosting next pantomime festivals in the
city.

While opening the monument a flesh-mob was organized.

Since 2010 the international pantomime festival was named after Leonid
Yengibarov.

This year the festival will take place in Tsakhkadzor, Armenia and
will host artists from Denmark, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Kazakhstan and
Japan.

Azerbaijan may pay too much for opposing Iran
Azerbaijan made the first move by sidelining the Iranian NIco company,
participant of Shah Deniz consortium from the planned pipeline
projects.

Baku is playing with fire, in the firm belief that the West will back
Ilham Aliyev if the latter openly confronts Iran, and may even turn a
blind eye to the lawlessness prevailing in Azerbaijan ` `the most
tolerant and democratic country of the region’. Azerbaijan has
recently declared itself the strategic partner of the U.S., with
certain encouragement by the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Baku
Richard Morningstar who mostly engages in advocating U.S. interests in
the Caspian region.

August 11, 2012

PanARMENIAN.Net – Azerbaijan made the first move by sidelining the
Iranian Naftiran Intertrade Co (NIco) company, participant of Shah
Deniz consortium from the planned pipeline projects, including the
Trans-Anatolia pipeline project. In its `U.S. Ally Azerbaijan to
Exclude Iran From Gas Pipeline to Europe’ article, businesweek.com
quotes Vaqif Aliyev, head of State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan’s investments
department as saying that Nico’s participation in the Trans-Anatolia
pipeline or other pipelines is not being considered. Meanwhile,
Naftiran Intertrade holds 10 percent of Shah Deniz.

Azerbaijan is known to have supported U.S. forces in Iraq and
Afghanistan. In June 2012, Azerbaijan and Turkey signed an agreement
to build the 2,000 kilometer (1,240 mile) Trans-Anatolia pipeline, or
Tanap, which will deliver at least 10 billion cubic meters of Azeri
gas a year to the EU border through Turkey. The project is estimated
to cost $7 billion.

SOCAR plans to share its 80 percent of Tanap with Shah Deniz partners.
`In independent projects like this, the selection of shareholders and
their stakes are agreed upon mutually by the partners in accordance
with their strategies and interests,’ Vaqif Aliyev said, without
elaborating on the reason for sidelining Iran.

Shah Deniz is estimated to contain 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas,
enough to supply demand in the European Union for about 20 years. BP
(operator – 25,5%), Statoil (25,5%), SOCAR (10%), LUKOIL (10%), NICO
(10%), Total (10%) и Turkiye Petrolleri AO (9%) are Shah Deniz
partners.

According to the “Country reports on Terrorism 2011” of the U.S.
Department of State, through the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Proliferation Prevention Program, the Azerbaijan government assumed
responsibility for the sustainment of seven radar stations along the
Caspian coast used by the Navy, Coast Guard, and State Border Service
to conduct maritime surveillance and detect smuggling threats. In
addition, the government of Azerbaijan completed the modernization of
its Central Reference Laboratory, a state-of-the-art biosafety
facility that will make joint research on potential bioterrorism
threats possible, the report says.

The paper also mentions that Azerbaijan actively opposed terrorist
organizations seeking to move people, money, and material through the
Caucasus. However, the thing is that deployment of U.S. radar stations
along the Caspian coast should be linked with the upcoming military
intervention against Iran. Therefore, build-up of control over Iran
from Azerbaijan’s territory is a key factor of this military strategy.

For his part, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei summoned
top Iranian military chiefs for what he called `their last war
council’, debka.com reports.

`We’ll be at war within weeks,’ he told the gathering, Debkafile’s
exclusive Iranian and intelligence sources disclose.

Khamenei put before his war council a timeline of weeks for the coming
conflict ` September or October.

Azerbaijan goes for much risk by supporting the U.S. and opposing
Iran. Meanwhile, even Turkey, a far more serious political player with
larger military potential does not make similar moves against Iran;
yet it does not pull up Baku either. Maybe this shows Ankara’s
decision to allow Azerbaijan independently get out of the mess it will
soon appear in, namely, respond to Iran’s military attack. Baku is
Washington’s ally, yet a temporary ally, indeed. Since U.S. went to
abandon Mubarak and its other faithful allies, Aliyev will certainly
share their fate.

Karine Ter-Sahakian

Russia’s state oil producer may enter Armenian market

news.am
August 13, 2012 | 13:00

Russia’s state oil producer Rosneft plans to enter Armenia’s fuel
market, a source told Russia’s Kommersant daily.

The offer was made by Armenia’s officials. Rosneft may become the main
oil product supplier to Armenia. It is likely to found a joint venture
with one of the local companies to build petrol stations and a
fuelling complex at Armenia’s international airport in Yerevan.
According to the source, the first talks may be held in late August.
However, Russia’s oil producer is not commenting on the reports.

The volume of Armenia’s oil product market is estimated at 340-360
tons imported per year.

A fueling complex built at Zvartnots airport is owned by Mikhail
Bagdasarov, owner of the national air carrier Armavia. Newspaper’s
source in one of the Russian air companies flying to Yerevan said
Armavia is the only company to use fueling complex because of high
price.

Armenian community leaves irreversible trace in Ukraine’s history and
culture, analyst says

tert.am
12:58 – 13.08.12

Any attempt of using Ukraine and its media field for deterioration of
conflicts is unacceptable, Ukrainian political analyst Dmitry Petrenko
told Analitika.at.ua, commenting on the attempts of the Azerbaijani
mass media to engage Ukraine in anti-Armenian campaign.

On August 8 Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich signed a scandalous
law `About State Language Policy Basics’ giving to a number of
languages, as well as to Armenian, status of regional language.

The move angered the Azerbaijani mass media, who accused Ukraine of
not doing the same with the Azerbaijani language and blamed the
Azerbaijani community for not working hard enough.

The analyst said in the difficult mosaic of foreign political
relations. Each state searches for available means to move its
interests forward.

`In this issue Diaspora plays a more significant role. Representatives
of ethnic minorities are being more actively engaged in the political
life of Ukraine, defending the interests of their compatriots,’ he
said, adding that it is quite normal and understandable.

According to him, ethnic minorities should be more active, feel them
as majority, as unbreakable and worthy part of Ukrainian people. `Only
in that case the Diaspora may have the prospect of having its worthy
place in multi-national Ukrainian family,’ Petrenko said.

In this pre-context he stressed the Armenian community has left an
irreversible trace in the history of Ukraine and is integrated into
the Ukrainian community on all the levels – in the social, political
lives.

Young man drowned in Lake Sevan

news.am
August 13, 2012 | 10:58

A body of a young man was found in Lake Sevan on Sunday.

The Emergency Situations Ministry received alert on Sunday evening.
The man drowned five meters away from the shore, the Ministry informed
Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The rescuers took out of the water the body of Aygestan Poghosyan,
29-year-old resident of Nor village. No details are reported.

Earlier the Emergency Situations Ministry said five fatal cases were
registered in Armenia’s Lake Sevan over seven months. Fourteen people
were rescued by lifeguards.

IRAK
Ankara traite avec le Kurdistan comme s’il était indépendant (Maliki)

Le Premier ministre irakien Nouri al-Maliki a dénoncé samedi
l’attitude de la Turquie qui traite, selon lui, avec la région
autonome du Kurdistan, en Irak, comme si elle était un Etat
indépendant, selon un communiqué diffusé sur son site internet.

La Turquie `traite avec la région (du Kurdistan) comme un Etat
indépendant et nous rejetons cela`, a déclaré M. Maliki dans une
interview devant être bientôt diffusée par une chaîne de télévision
turque, indique le communiqué.

Si Ankara `veut btir de bonnes relations, ses relations avec la
région (du Kurdistan) doivent être établies par le biais de l’Etat
irakien`, a indiqué M. Maliki.

Cette déclaration intervient après la visite début août au Kurdistan
irakien puis dans la ville disputée de Kirkouk (nord) du chef de la
diplomatie turque Ahmet Davutoglu, effectuée sans que Bagdad en ait
été avisé.

Bagdad avait vivement protesté contre sa visite à Kirkouk, une ville
que se disputent le gouvernement central de Bagdad et le Kurdistan
irakien.

Les exportations de pétrole en provenance de la région autonome kurde
vers la Turquie sans l’approbation de Bagdad ont en outre aggravé la
tension entre les deux pays.

dimanche 12 août 2012,
Stéphane ©armenews.com

Everything is being done so that the Harsnaqar case is not detected
and the real perpetrators are not punished

hetq
11:00, August 9, 2012

Yesterday the Investigative Department of Especially Important Cases
(EIC) of the RA Police General Criminal Department, considering, that
sufficient evidence had been collected concerning the criminal case on
the incident which happened on 17 June, 2012 in the courtyard of
Harsnaqar restaurant, announced that they completed the preliminary
investigation and provided the materials of the case to the parties in
order for them to get familiarized with them.

We inform that the materials of the case were provided to us, Vahe
Avetyan’s successor’s and the other 4 victims’ representatives,
yesterday at around 22:00 by investigator Roman Sardaryan from the
same department, who personally came to our office to hand them over.
The overall materials of the case consist of 3 volumes – in more than
1000 pages.

We were also notified that we were invited to the department on 10
August, at 10:00 AM to submit our motions on the case. And this is
being done at a time when Arsen Ayvazyan, head of the EIC Department
for Crimes against Human Life and Health had informed us in the same
morning that an agreement had been obtained during his reporting to
the prosecutor general’s office that the advocates would be given a
reasonable period of time to familiarize themselves with the materials
of the case.

It is obvious that the period provided to us is not reasonable for
getting familiarized with the case and for submitting motions. It is
not even reasonable for reading a smaller-scale piece of fiction,
something, for which there is no need for serious analysis and
submission of motions.

To prove this, we are offering Arsen Ayvazyan to take part in our
legal experimentation and from 17:30 o’clock today until 17:30 o’clock
tomorrow, to read out, down the EIC building and in front of all the
citizens who are concerned about the fair outcome of this case, `The
Treasure Island’, which, possibly, remained out of his school program.

In the meantime, taking into consideration the seriousness of the case
and the already-noticed serious violations and deficiencies, we demand
from both the EIC Investigative Department and the General
Prosecutor’s Office, to provide us with a one-month period to get
familiarized with the case to be able to have effective participation
in the preliminary investigation, to achieve the detection of the
crime and to make sure that the real perpetrators are punished.

Advocates
Tigran Yegoryan
Lousineh Hakobyan

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Aug 10 2012

European commissioner for energy wants more attention for Azerbaijan
and Nagorno-Karabakh

European Commissioner for Energy Gunther Oettinger has called
Azerbaijan an essential ally of the European Union, APA reports.

He said that Azerbaijan’s part in the Eastern Partnership is a
historic stage. Azerbaijan confirmed its important role in energy
transport by signing the Southern Corridor Declaration.

The EU official added that the Nagorno-Karabakh Region is Azerbaijani
territory, as stated in resolutions of the UN and other international
organizations.

LA Late, CA
Aug 11 2012

Iran Earthquake Today 2012 Felt in Armenia

LOS ANGELES (LALATE) – Another Iran earthquake today 2012 has struck
near Ahar and could be felt in Armenia. The latest Iran earthquake
today August 11, 2012 struck within the hour. It follows two other
stronger quakes with the same epicenters earlier Saturday.

The Iran earthquakes today started with a 6.4 magnitude quake. USGS
reports to news that the first quake erupted shortly before 4 pm local
time. That quake was followed up with a 6.3 magnitude temblor and the
most recent 5.0 quake roughly forty-five minutes ago.

The latest quake erupted with virtually no depth. USGS indicates to
news that the quake struck six miles below the earth’s surface. As a
result, it could be felt across the region.

The quake was only twelve miles west of Ahar. It could also be felt
east, thirty-seven miles near Tabriz. The quake erupted roughly sixty
miles from Marand, Iran and Kapan, Armenia, USGS indicates to news.

No reports of damage or injuries have yet to be detailed by local
news. In related news, a strong quake also struck China today. The 5.3
quake erupted sixteen miles below the earth’s surface. It was centered
east of Arzak and Schache.