THEY’RE COMING AGAIN
01:05 pm | Today | Politics
The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will visit Armenia on May 12.
During the visit, Co-Chairs Robert Bradtke, Jacques For and Igor
Popov will have meetings with Serzh Sargsyan and Foreign Minister
Edward Nalbandyan.
On May 13, the Co-Chairs will leave for Azerbaijan, but it isn’t
clear as to whether they will visit the NKR or not this time.
HSBC BANK ARMENIA OPENS NEW BRANCH IN YEREVAN
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 10, 2012 – 13:21 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Today, May 10 HSBC Bank Armenia held a ribbon-cutting
ceremony for its new HSBC STATUS branch at 4/1 Baghramyan Avenue,
with the promise that each customer will receive best in class banking
service through fully trained and accredited dedicated relationship
managers.
According to a press release, the branch will be available to all
customers who place savings or investments of at least AMD 20 million
with the bank. STATUS customers are automatically granted with World
Black Edition Master Cards and free Concierge services.
“We are strategically expanding our branch network, and this time
we have focused on STATUS customers, who have made a significant
contribution to the bank’s success in recent years. The branch has
been carefully designed to meet the specific banking requirements
of this discerning group of customers. We were very pleased that
our Chairman and board of directors were able to join us for the
ribbon-cutting ceremony today, on this very symbolic day for Armenia,”
HSBC Bank Armenia Chief Executive Officer Astrid Clifford said.
With the new Status branch, HSBC will have nine branches located in
different districts of Yerevan, and more than 50 ATMs located across
the city.
TURKEY MULLS PEACE WITH FRANCE IF GENOCIDE STANCE ALTERED
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 11, 2012 – 13:34 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Turkey said it could consider lifting the
eight-article sanctions imposed on France, depending on the stance
the new French administration takes on the Armenian Genocide issue,
Hurriyet Daily News reported.
Speaking of the French presidential candidates’ election promises to
revive the country’s Genocide Denial law, which was annulled by the
French Constitutional Court of France, Foreign Ministry spokesperson
Selcuk Unal told reporters at his weekly press conference: “Of course
we should look at those statements and monitor further phases. We have
to wait for France to form a new government.” “The steps the French
government takes will be the arbiter in our plans,” Unal added. “The
situation our bilateral relations are in today does not suit the
strong history of French-Turkish ties,” Unal said.
If France acts in what the Turkish government considers as an
appropriate manner, Turkey is ready both to strengthen bilateral ties
and to work closely with France on international issues affecting
Europe’s future, Unal said, adding that Ankara also expects that the
new French administration will open the five chapters of Turkey’s EU
membership negotiations that have been frozen by France.
On January 23, the French Senate passed the bill criminalizing the
Armenian Genocide denial with 127 votes for and 86 against. The bill
stipulated for 45,000 euro fine and a year in prison for anyone
in France who denies this crime against humanity committed by the
Ottoman Empire.
Turkey reacted furiously when the Senate approved the law. Ankara
halted political and military cooperation with France and was
threatening to cut off economic and cultural ties if the law took
effect.
On February 28, the French Constitutional Council ruled the bill
criminalizing the Armenian Genocide denial adopted earlier by the
Senate of France as unconstitutional.
Then President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to submit a new Genocide bill
in June 2012 if re-elected for a new term.
HELSINKI COMMITTEE REP. ON PARLIAMENTARY POLLS
tert.am
11.05.12
The May 6 parliamentary polls saw a new form of electoral frauds
that came to replace the traditional methods of vote rigging, the
president of the Helsinki Committee has said.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Avetik Ishkhanyan pointed out to
the crowding of people outside polling stations.
“Although this election differed in terms of a lesser degree of
violence, new technologies were used to replace the traditional
forms of wrongdoings,” he said, characterizing the new method as
human stuffing.
Ishkyanyan noted that the Committee had carried out an observation
mission in 24 polling stations in Yerevan’s Arabkor district.
“We chose that constituency as we expected a sharp rivalry there,”
he said.
Businessman Artak Sargsyan won the election in the district, receiving
a majority of votes.
According to the Helsinki Committee the recent parliamentary election
in Armenia does not assist in tje country’s genuine democratization
as it reflects the authorities’ failure to reform the process
institutionally.
“The validity of the electoral process was strongly affected by
widespread poverty – unemployment, lack of protection for individual
citizens, and impunity for others have deprived scores of citizens of
the possibility to make a free, informed, and conscious choice. The
formation of this moral and psychological atmosphere was largely
due to the fact that the Armenian authorities have so far failed to
exert sufficient efforts to identify and punish those in charge of
organizing and carrying out the 1 March 2008 bloodshed, as well as
those responsible for the fraud in the 2008 and following elections.
On the eve of the 2012 May election, the National Assembly adopted
a contentious Law on the Legal Regime of the State of Emergency,
which allows the interference of the armed forces in the domestic
political process and was, as such, perceived by many as a threat,”
the Committee says in a statement.
ARMENIA’S REP. TO UN STRESSES AZERI TIES WITH AL-QAEDA LINKED GROUPS
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 11, 2012 – 11:53 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – On May 10, UN hosted a session of Security Council
anti-terrorism committees chaired by Azerbaijan.
At the session, Azerbaijan, abusing its position as a chair, refused
Armenia a right to make a report, in full realization that official
Yerevan will respond to Azerbaijan’s cynical statements issued last
week at UN. However, under the pressure of Security Council members,
Azerbaijan had to give the floor to Armenia’s permanent representative
to UN Karen Nazaryan.
In his statement, the representative of Armenia expressed concern over
the fact that Azerbaijan’s territory is used as a safe transport route
for terrorist and radical religious groups engaged in illegal transfer
of weaponry and money. Nazaryan also stressed the ties of Azeri
authorities with al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups who fought against
Nagorno Karabakh in the 90s. In conclusion, Armenia’s representative
urged for increased caution against boosting terrorist activities in
the region.
Also, a document was issued at UN Security Council expressing
discontent over May 4 statement of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev,
which caused an open resentment among Security Council members.
R GIRAGOSIAN: PROSPEROUS ARMENIA PARTY WILL JOIN COALITION
Panorama.am
11/05/2012
Prosperous Armenia Party will join the new coalition agreement to
be most possibly established by the Republican Party of Armenia,
director of Regional Studies Center said.
“PAP has improved its positions in the elections, but it’s not enough.
PAP has been established as a ruling party and cannot turn into
opposition force. PAP will join the coalition to utilize its sources
of power,” said Richard Giragosian.
Remarking on rumors that Robert Kocharyan will possibly return to
politics and his relationship with PAP, Mr Giragosian said Kocharyan
has a great number of supporters in PAP but “the party is not led
by Kocharyan.”
Richard Giragosian added that he does not think Robert Kocharyan will
ever return to politics.
VOTE 2012: MONITORING REVEALS PRINT MEDIA BIAS IN CAMPAIGN COVERAGE
By Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow
11.05.12 | 11:19
Armen Minasyan
During the pre-election period Armenian print media were full of
unbalanced coverage and served more campaigning than informational
goals, according to a study that also revealed a huge interest that
newspapers showed in the process.
Enlarge Photo Tatevik Pirumyan The monitoring conducted on March
12-May 5 showed that a total of 16 newspapers (combined selling only
several thousand copies a day) published nearly 5,000 stories and
articles related to the May 6 parliamentary elections.
Representatives of the Armenian Public Relations Association (APRA)
that carried out the project say that they had thoroughly analyzed each
newspaper item about the elections before arriving at the conclusion.
“Many of the newspapers had more than a third of their election-related
content with overt campaigning for or against a certain political
force or politician,” says APRA head Armen Minasyan.
Thus, according to the results of the monitoring, 10.8 percent of
the reviewed content amounted to open campaigning, 38.2 percent to
veiled campaigning, and only 51 percent did not contain major elements
of campaigning.
“Almost all newspapers having clear political orientations had
dominating negative references to opposite camps in stories concerning
forces they are loyal to. Most references have been against the
[ruling] Republican Party of Armenia and [its junior coalition partner]
Prosperous Armenia Party, with the least number of references to the
United Armenians Party and the Communist Party,” says APRA executive
director Tatevik Pirumyan.
The project was implemented within the framework of the Support to
Electoral Processes in Armenia program funded by the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Yerevan office and the European
Union. Among the newspapers reviewed were those with circulations of
3,000 and more copies a day and distribution countrywide.
Minasyan says that cases of authors showing their bias in articles
and stories were manifested in comments containing evaluations as
well as leading questions to interviewees.
Representatives of the organization note that politically most
references were made to the Republican Party of Armenia, with 40
percent of them having a negative character, while only 9.5 percent
of a positive nature. The second “most referred to” political force
was Prosperous Armenia, with its negative coverage making 37 percent,
against 9.4 percent of the positive.
Negative references to the Armenian National Congress (ANC) made 41.9
percent, whereas positive references to this opposition bloc made 12.1
percent. Of the other parties the most frequent negative references
were about Orinats Yerkir (39.6 percent), the most positive – about ARF
Dashnaktsutyun (11.6 percent). The activities of the Democratic Party
of Armenia, the Communist Party of Armenia and the United Armenians
Parties were given practically no coverage, with rare references made
to these parties in print media.
Minasyan says that the comparison of the print media coverage of
the latest campaign with that during the previous election period
shows negative tendencies related to coverage aggravating in Armenian
print media.
“As the Election Day got closer print media tended to increase the
number of stories with negative evaluations and smear against separate
forces. This was also reflected in headlines,” he says.
According to the study, nearly 90 percent of print media coverage of
the campaign related to the intricacies of the process itself rather
than issues discussed during it.
ARMENIAN DIPLOMAT CONCERNED OVER AZERBAIJAN’S LINKS TO PRO-AL QAEDA GROUPS
TERT.AM
13:09 ~U 11.05.12
Armenia’s permanent representative to the United Nations has
expressed concerns over the Azerbaijani authorities’ links to Islamist
terrorists, including pro-Al Qaeda groups.
Ambassador Karen Nazaryan addressed the question at a discussion of
reports submitted by the Security Council’s committees dealing with
counter-terrorism issues.
According to a press release by the Foreign Ministry, Azerbaijan, which
was chairing the meeting, first rejected the Armenian representative’s
request to speak at the discussion, but under the pressure of the
member states, finally gave the floor to the diplomat.
Addressing the meeting, Nazaryan said that Armenia’s close borders
with neighboring states are a key obstacle to regional cooperation. He
was concerned over international organizations’ reports that the
Azerbaijan’s territory is being freely issued by different terrorist
and extremist religious groups who consider the country a secure
environment for their unlawful operations.
The ambassador said the groups had been engaged in the trafficking
of money, weapons and human beings across the Caucasus region,
raising the world community’s concerns over Azerbaijan’s inadequate
counter-terrorism policies.
Nazaryan added that the country had proven connections with pro-Al
Qaeda groups which attempted to wage a war against Karabakh in the
early 1990s. He stressed the importance of demonstrating vigilance
to prevent the recruitment of terrorists and hinder any attempts to
speculate the the region fragility.
LA SECURITE ALIMENTAIRE EN 2011 EN ARMENIE
Stephane
armenews.com
vendredi 11 mai 2012
L’agence en charge de la securite alimentaire au Ministère armenien
de l’agriculture en 2011 a verse des amendes a plus de 70 entites
economiques pour un montant de près de 6 millions de drams, a declare
le chef du service Abram Bakhchagyulyan. En 2011, le Service a fait
des inspections dans 76 societes, dont 32 opèrent dans la sphère de
la production de viande, 11 dans la production de lait, 9 dans la
production de fromage, ainsi que huit magasins et points de vente
au detail (parmi lesquelles les plus grandes chaînes de supermarches
“Erevan City” et “Zovk”).
Les infractions relevees dans la production laitière essentiellement
visent des lacunes et des insuffisances dans la documentation, les
dates d’expiration etc…
“Nous avons egalement verifie 32 points de vente de viande a Erevan.
Presque dans tous les points verifies, nous avons detecte des
violations, en particulier le manque de documentation sur l’expertise
medicale et sanitaire des produits vendus et l’insuffisance des
conditions sanitaires d’hygienes. Les cas ont ete detectes lorsque la
viande de cheval a ete vendue a la place de la viande d’autres animaux
“, a-t-il dit.
Les penalites pour les infractions enumerees varient de 30 a 500000
drams.
“Dans le cas où le consommateur detecte une violation, nous lui
demandons gentiment de nous en informer en telephonant sur la hot line
010 45 74 21 ou envoyer un message electronique sur le site officiel
de la fonction publique () ” a-t-il dit.
DEVLET BAHCHELI ” IL N’Y A AUCUN GENOCIDE DANS L’HISTOIRE TURQUE ”
Stephane
armenews.com
vendredi 11 mai 2012
Le chef du parti nationaliste et raciste le Mouvement Nationaliste
Turc a critique Barak Obama sur sa declaration a l’occasion du 24
avril invitant l’administration americaine a jeter un coup d’oeil
sur sa propre histoire et a dit ” il n’y a aucun genocide, meurtre
ou massacre dans l’histoire turque “.
Devlet Bahcheli a critique les attitudes de l’Amerique et de la
France dans une declaration ecrite affirmant qu’ Obama devrait au
lieu de s’occuper ” du grand desastre ” regarder derrière lui le ”
massacre nucleaire et la tragedie d’Hiroshima et de Nagasaki ” et
” Si ce n’est pas assez, il devrait regarder et avouer le massacre
sauvage de millions d’indigènes sur le continent americain “.
Devlet Bahcheli a aussi parle du president francais Nicolas Sarkozy
et des remarques de son rival Francois Hollande contre la Turquie et
a dit ” Ces deux representants imperialistes ont banalise et ont pris
l’habitude d’insulter l’histoire de la nation turque “.