Author: Zaminian Bedik

Russia & CIS General Newswire
January 5, 2008 Saturday 4:16 PM MSK

Patarkatsishvili campaign staff says election frauds numerous

TBILISI Jan 5

Georgian presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili’s campaign
staff says frauds are numerous in the Georgian election.

"Our representatives were not cleared into some polling stations," a
campaign manager, Levan Chkheidze, said at a press briefing on
Saturday.

"In some instances minors were allowed to fill in ballot papers.

Ballot papers were printed only in the Armenian language in
Akhalkalaki, and voters cannot read what is written in them. Police
threaten voters and force them to vote for Mikheil Saakashvili," he
said.

Predominantly Armenian Akhalkalaki is located in southern Georgia.

"Some polling stations opened much later than the due hour," he also
said.

The Patarkatsishvili campaign staff will refer photographs and videos
documenting election violations to international observers, Chkheidze
said.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 1 2008

No inadequacies in Dink investigation, claim inspectors

A highly controversial investigation into the murder of Turkish
Armenian journalist Hrant Dink which involved a number of
contradictions has no loopholes, according to the Prime Ministry’s
Inspection Council.

Dink was shot dead by an ultra-nationalist teenager outside his
office on Jan. 19. Throughout the investigation, a number of
suspicious points hinting at police involvement have led the Dink
family to conclude that the assassination was being covered up by
either the police or the judiciary — or maybe both. Rakel Dink, the
slain journalist’s wife, had applied to the Prime Ministry’s
Inspection Council regarding the suspicions around the investigation.
The Prime Ministry’s Office responded positively to the application
and started an inquiry into the investigation process. After working
for eight months on the application, the Prime Ministry office’s
inspectors concluded that there were no loopholes in the
investigation.

The inspectors based their finding on intelligence reports, phone
conversation transcripts and official correspondences between the
Police Department of Trabzon and Ýstanbul. Dink’s killer was from
Trabzon. Another prime suspect in the operation, who was the one the
assassin said incited him, was a police informant with the Trabzon
police. The investigation had revealed that the Ýstanbul police had
been tipped off about the plans to kill Dink many times.

The inspectors ruled that no document or information on any of the
suspects, including the former police informant, was being hidden.
The Human Rights Committee in Parliament is currently also carrying
out an investigation into the Dink murder.

Fethiye Çetin, a lawyer representing the Dink family said: `There was
no need for this investigation to last eight months. Some documents
are very obvious.’ She added that she and the other lawyers hadn’t
yet seen the council’s report.

01.01.2008

Today’s Zaman Ankara

MAIN OBJECTIVE OF NEWLY-CREATED SCIENCE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE IS
IMPLEMENTATION OF SCIENCE DEVELOPMENT POLICY

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN. By the decision of the Armenian
government, a united body on management of the sphere of science – the
Science Management Committee has been created. Its main objective is to
implement a policy on development of science, Karen Hayrapetian, the
head of the Science and Post-Graduate Education of the RA Ministry of
Education and Science, told NT correspondent.

In his words, the creation of the science committee is conditioned by
the fact that in Armenia the science management function was fulfilled
by several state governance bodies, including the ministries of
agriculture, health care, and trade and economic development, the
National Academy of Sciences, etc. "The problem was that each of these
bodies was responsible for a branch of science, so it was impossible to
present requirements to one of them. Whereas, science management
requires a united policy conducted by one body," he underlined.

K. Hayrapetian reminded that Armenia is not in an advantageous position
in terms of its geographical location and natural resources so the main
wealth of the coutry is its human and scientific potential. "If we
succeed in linking science with economy and implementing an efficient
investment policy, we will achieve the development of the country and
economy and ensure an overall development," K. Hayrapetian expressed an
opinion.

The purpose of the newly-created committee is not only to get
scientific products but also to commercialize them. "Taking into
account today’s Armenian market, we must be able to patent this
commercialized product in other countries and then to sell it as a
commodity which will bring considerable sums for science," he said.

In his opinion, in order to solve this problem, the state should
implement a definite policy aimed at choosing scientific products in
various directions of science and allocating budgetary resources in
order to patent them abroad.

The science committee is now at the formation stage. Its regulations
and composition have already been approved. The committee will have 40
positions which will be formed at the expense of other ministries’
positions. The committee will function as an independent state
governance body in the system of the ministry of education and science.

By the 2008 state budget, 6 billion 800 million drams has been
allocated to science. Allocations to science make up 2-3% of GDP in
developed countries. According to K. Hayrapetian, like in former Soviet
countries, in Armenia this index makes 1%.

Tigran Sargsyan assesses the growth of the banking sphere as `unprecedented’

armradio.am
27.12.2007 14:56

Unprecedented indices of economic growth have been registered in the
baking system of Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan, the President of the Central
Bank of Armenia, declared at the traditional reception organized in
honor of the bank leaders. According to Mr. Sargsyan, in the passing
year the growth in the banking sphere reached 40% in the passing year.
Tigran Sargsyan specially emphasized the fact that this year `the
Armenian banks registered unprecedented high indices.’

In 2007 the growth of loans reached 72%, the volume of mortgage loans
doubled as compared to the indices of 2006, Tigran Sargsyan said.

The President of the Central Bank noted that the revenue of the
insurance companies of Armenia has doubled in the passing year.

CO-CHAIRS HOPE THE PRESIDENTS WILL ARRIVE AT A VERBAL AGREEMENT BEFORE THE ELECTIONS

armradio.am
25.12.2007 13:19

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair
Matthew Bryza expressed hope that "before the presidential elections
in Armenia it will be possible to reach a verbal or, as we say,
a gentleman agreement on the Karabakh conflict settlement."

"In Madrid Ministers Lavrov and Kouchner and US Deputy Secretary of
State Burns conveyed to their Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts
the last edition of the basic principles. The document includes
suggestions on a small number of issues in the direction of overcoming
the misunderstandings existing between Armenia and Azerbaijan,"
the US mediator said.

Matthew Bryza noted that the Co-Chairs are planning to visit the
region in mid-January, 2008 to learn about Kocharyan’s and Aliev’s
reaction to the latest suggestions.

"The Co-Chairs hope that the Presidents will arrive at a verbal
agreement on the document before the presidential elections in
Armenia. This verbal agreement will allow to start the negotiations
on the peace agreement," he noted.

"The basic principles suggested in Madrid can be viewed as the outcome
of the negotiations of the past three years. The main principles we
have today are not identical with the ones which we started with. The
main format is nearly the same, but over the past three years different
ideas and approaches have been suggested at different points. Some
changes the Co-Chairs took into consideration are essential and derive
form the concessions of both parties," Mr. Bryza said.

"The Presidents themselves must be confident that the mediators’
suggestion promises real achievements and corresponds to national
interests of their countries. When every President confesses that
he and his counterpart have reached the endpoint in the search for
concessions, they must make a final choice, i.e. agree with the fair
concession on the bargaining table or start over with the threat of
military conflict persisting. We hope that the Presidnets will choose
the basic principles which outline a peaceful and lasting settlement,"
Matthew Bryza said.

CONDUCTING ‘WEEK OF ARMENIA’ IN AZERBAIJAN IS UNACCEPTABLE: AZERBAIJANI MP

Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
Dec 24 2007

Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend J.Babayeva / Conducting ‘week of
Armenia’ in Azerbaijan is unacceptable, the Head of Executive Power
of Azerbaijan’s occupied district of Khojali, MP Elman Mammadov,
reported to Trend on 24 December.

Two Armenian youth organizations made an initiative to hold week
of Armenia in Azerbaijan. According to Mammadov, the proposal to
hold week of Armenia in Azerbaijan is the next falsity, with help
of which, Armenia wants to demonstrate to the world public that as
though Armenian people is humane.

According to him, participating in week of Azerbaijan in Armenia,
the Azerbaijanis play in the hands of enemies.

"As long as Azerbaijan’s lands are under occupation of Armenia and
we have more than one million IDPs and refugees, it is unacceptable
to hold week of Armenia in Azerbaijan," Mammadov said.

Between 17 and 23 December, the Azerbaijani Ganja, Agstafa and Gazakh
representation of Helsinki Citizens’ of Azerbaijan, Director of
Mingachevir Center on Human Rights, Jansh Omarov, journalist Seymur
Bayjan, Head of Agency Third Vision, Rauf Rajabov, Head of Consensus
NGO, Afet Sariyev, arrived in Armenia to attend week of Azerbaijan.

Panorama.am

13:21 22/12/2007

CRIMINAL CASE INSTITUTED AGAINST ARMENIAN TIMES

Vazgen Manukyan, the chairman of National People’s Union (AJM) sent an
application – complaint to the chief prosecutor of Armenia informing
that in 15.12.07 issue N 224 of Hajiakan Jamanak (Armenian Times) an
article was published titled `MEIN KAMPF’ that is an obvious lie and
discredits him. The information included claims on serious crimes.

According to the official web page of the chief prosecutor’s office,
the applicant informed that he is accused in coup d’état, in
organization of a revolution and in `obvious treachery.’

The same source informs that the Armenian chief prosecutor’s office
has instituted a criminal case on December 20 based on part 1, article
135 and part 1, article 136 of the Armenian Criminal Code. The
criminal case is forwarded to the investigation department of Kentron
police for investigation.

Source: Panorama.am

HOVNANIAN PREDICTS RETURN TO PROFIT; ANALYSTS SEE BIG PROBLEMS
By Linda A. Johnson

Newsday.com
6:06 PM EST, December 19, 2007

A day after reporting a huge quarterly loss, executives at
Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. predicted the homebuilder will return to
profitability _ but not until the housing market reverts to normal
conditions. Investors pounded its stock, though, driving prices down
more than 11 percent.

"Overall, the housing market remains very challenging, and it resulted
in the first fiscal-year loss for our company in a very long time,"
Ara K. Hovnanian, president and chief executive, told analysts in a
conference call Wednesday.

The Red Bank-based company posted a net loss of $469.3 million, or
$7.42 per share, for its fourth quarter, which ended Oct. 31, and a
loss of $637.8 million, or $10.11 per share, for the fiscal year. The
quarterly loss was about four times that of the year-ago period.

Quarterly revenue fell 20 percent to $1.39 billion from $1.75 billion
in the same period last year.

"We made over $1 billion pretax in ’05 and ’06, and unfortunately we’re
giving back a large chunk of those profits in ’07," Hovnanian said.

Company officials blamed most of the losses on write-offs totaling
$383 million, including $168 million to cover drops in the value of
land it owns and a $216 million non-cash valuation allowance required
by new accounting rules that say companies reporting or expecting
three straight years of losses cannot keep carrying deferred tax
credits indefinitely.

The latter charge hurt the latest results _ and indicates the company’s
auditors don’t expect to see profits soon, according to some analysts _
but Hovnanian Enterprises will still be able to deduct the deferred
credits from the taxes it would pay on future profits any time over
the next 20 years.

Hovnanian said that for the U.S. housing market to recover, inventories
of existing homes need to decline and sellers of existing homes need
to decrease their prices more in line with the sharp cuts builders
have been making to sell their new homes.

So far, the only encouraging sign the company has seen is an increase
in home sales during the first three weeks of December, but officials
would not provide any figures.

Analysts, apparently looking for other promising signs, pressed for
projections on gross margins and cash flow and asked whether further
housing price cuts will be needed, but Hovnanian executives declined
to answer, saying only that they expect a total positive cash flow
of about $100 million in fiscal year 2008, up from a negative $71
million in fiscal 2007.

They said the company has been working to cut construction and
overhead costs, has reduced staff by 43 percent since June 2006,
dropped options to buy about 18,000 building lots in fiscal 2007,
and reduced the number of lots it owns by 15 percent during the year,
to about 28,700. It also reduced its exposure to the subprime mortgages
wreaking havoc in the housing market and cut debt by $390 million in
the quarter, to a total of $2.2 billion.

However, analysts pointed to a number of problems.

UBS Securities analyst David Goldberg wrote that gross margins declined
by nearly 1 percent from last year, more than expected, and total
write-offs were higher than expected, driving "underperformance." He
now expects the company to lose $5.55 per share in 2008, 35 cents
worse than his previous estimate.

JPMorgan Securities analyst Michael Rehaut wrote that write-downs
on the value of Hovnanian’s land were "well above our estimate"
and higher than charges taken by other homebuilders.

Daniel Oppenheim of Banc of America Securities noted that Hovnanian
faces liquidity concerns and is in discussion with its banks regarding
compliance on financing.

A company spokesman said it has received a waiver on terms of loan
covenants and is negotiating new terms for its revolving credit line
to gain more flexibility.

"Unfortunately, we expect another grim spring season as high and rising
inventories continue to push home prices lower, further eroding buyers’
confidence," Oppenheim wrote in a note to clients.

Hovnanian shares fell 96 cents to $7.44 Wednesday, but rose 32 cents
in after-hours trading. Shares are down more than 75 percent from
the 52-week high of $37.58.

EU ENVOY REMAINS UPBEAT ON ARMENIA POLL CONDUCT
By Ruben Meloyan and Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Dec 20 2007

The European Union’s special representative to the South Caucasus,
Peter Semneby, reaffirmed on Thursday his optimism regarding the
conduct of Armenia’s upcoming presidential election which he said is
likely to be free and fair.

Semneby’s upbeat forecast contrasted with serious concerns about the
pre-election situation in the country expressed by senior officials
from another pan-European organization, the Council of Europe. They
said the Armenian electronic media, overwhelmingly controlled by
the government, are highly tendentious in their coverage of the
intensifying presidential race.

"I have, in general, a positive feeling about the atmosphere before
the elections," Semneby told RFE/RL in an interview. "We have a large
field of strong candidates with clear profiles, programs and ideas,
and that’s very good for the development of Armenian democracy."

"The signs are that this will be an election that will be free and
fair," he said.

Semneby explained that his optimism stems, in large measure, from the
Armenian authorities’ handling of last May’s parliamentary elections
which Western observers described as largely democratic. "Armenia has
received quite a lot of good will as a result of the parliamentary
elections," he said. "Armenia has, in many ways, set the standard
after the countries in the South Caucasus have been invited to the
European Neighborhood Program."

The Armenian opposition strongly disagrees with the EU’s positive
assessment of the May elections, saying that they were as fraudulent
as the previous ones. Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, widely
seen as the main opposition presidential candidate, alleged last month
that "vote falsifications were disguised with such ingenuity that no
observer could detect them." Ter-Petrosian said that Western monitoring
of the February election could therefore prove "meaningless."

The lack of opposition trust in the integrity of the electoral
process was noted by representatives of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who visited Yerevan earlier this
month to prepare for the dispatch of an OSCE observer mission to
the country. The officials representing the OSCE’s Warsaw-based
vote-monitoring arm, the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights, met with senior government officials and leaders of the main
Armenian parties.

"Different fraud schemes suggestive of multiple voting or vote buying
have been alleged, such as printing of large numbers of fake passports
or the usage of different color pens to mark the ballots," they said
in a report released this week. "Some interlocutors expressed their
suspicions that vote-buying will take place on a large scale. However,
no detailed information or supporting documentation were provided to
support such claims."

Ter-Petrosian and other opposition candidates also complain about
a lack of access to the government-controlled electronic media,
the number one source of news for Armenians. Giving weight to those
complaints, the Yerevan Press Club, an independent media watchdog,
has faulted Armenia’s main TV and radio stations for aggressively
promoting Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, President Robert Kocharian’s
preferred successor. The YPC has also criticized them for displaying
"unprecedented" bias against Ter-Petrosian.

Terry Davis, the Council of Europe secretary general, said on
Monday that he told Sarkisian in Strasbourg last week that he is
"very concerned" about the Armenian election coverage. "As I was
explaining to the prime minister of Armenia, it’s not the number of
[media] references to him or to his political opponents that matters,
it was the overwhelming analysis which showed that the comments were
favorable to the prime minister and unfavorable for his opponents,"
Davis told RFE/RL in New York. "And that’s wrong, that’s biased,
and that’s what’s wrong in a democracy."

"I think the situation, as it is analyzed today with the media in
Armenia, does not meet the standards of the Council of Europe to
a large extent," he said, citing the results of YPC monitoring of
the airwaves.

Davis’s concerns were echoed on Thursday by a representative of a
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly committee monitoring Armenia’s
compliance with its membership obligations to the Strasbourg-based
organization. Georges Colobmier, who visited Yerevan on a fact-finding
trip earlier this month, likewise cited the YPC monitoring in
complaining about "excessive coverage of the Prime Minister." "I
insisted that a more balanced access to the public television should
be guaranteed for all 9 presidential candidates," Colombier said in
a report.

Sarkisian dismissed such statements as he received Semneby in Yerevan
on Wednesday. The Armenian government’s press service quoted him saying
that the source of information cited by Davis is "not objective" and
suggesting that the Armenian broadcasters be monitored instead by an
"authoritative international organization."

Semneby, who again met Ter-Petrosian on Wednesday, said the EU
will follow the media coverage with "great interest" and that
the authorities should pay "special attention" to the issue. "It’s
obviously an issue that needs to be taken into account and seriously
considered," the EU envoy said.

In his report, Colombier described Ter-Petrosian as Sarkisian’s
main challenger who "seems to have actually caused an increasing
attention to the presidential elections which would have otherwise been
considered as won in advance" by the Armenian premier. He criticized
the government for resorting to "intimidation and occasionally
violence" against Ter-Petrosian supporters.

The PACE rapporteur also deplored a continuing lack of judicial
independence in Armenia and said he heard numerous complaints that
the situation with human rights in the country has deteriorated
this year. "Police brutality seems to have risen during the year
as confirmed both by the Human Rights Defender in Armenia and the
[Council of Europe] Commissioner for Human Rights," he said.

"Ill-treatment is widely used in particular as a means to obtain
confessions."

"LEGITIMATE PRESIDENT 2008" MOVEMENT TO CALL TO SERGE SARGSIAN FOR RESIGNING

Noyan Tapan
Dec 14, 2007

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, NOYAN TAPAN. The "Legitimate President 2008"
movement is going to call to Prime Minister Serge Sargsian for
resigning for the purpose of providing equal conditions for all the
candidates running for the post of the RA President. This statement
was made at the December 14 meeting of the initiating group of the
movement.

Lyudmila Sargsian, the Chairwoman of the Social-Democratic Hnchakian
party, declared that the initiating group is also preparing a statement
addressed to foreign observers, where the possible falsifications
and infringements to be made by the current authorities will be
indicated. Lyudmila Sargsian mentioned that falsifications are made
not only on the day of the election, but also beforehand: "The whole
administrative machinery becomes a machinery of falsifications."

Aram Karapetian, the Leader of the New Times party, mentioned that a
totalitarian system has been established in Armenia, as well as in a
number of other CIS countries. It is possible to change this system
only through a revolutionary way. According to him, the following day
of the RA presidential elections, that is February 20, is to become
a most important moment, when the people will impose its will upon
the authorities.

However, according to Nikol Pashinian, a member of the Impeachment
Bloc, everything should be decided before February 19. In his opinion,
there is a very distinct differentiation in the political field, two
important poles have been created: the national movement headed by
Levon Ter-Petrosian and the supporters of the chieftainship gathered
around Serge Sargsian. The creation of a third pole, according to
Nikol Pashinian, is of artificial character and is beneficial only
for the authorities.