Category: News

Financings include €51 million loan to upgrade the 405 MW Complex

ContourGlobal has announced that its subsidiary, ContourGlobal Hydro Cascade CJSC, signed two credit facilities which comprise nearly $200 million of non-recourse long term financing for Armenian business on December 29, 2016.

A $140 million long-term financing provided by the International Finance Corporation (“IFC”), Dutch development bank FMO and DEG the German Investment and Development Corporation was closed and disbursed on December 29, 2016.  Proceeds from the loan will be used to refinance bridge loans and shareholder loans that were put in place to fund the acquisition of the Vorotan Facility from the Government of Armenia in 2015 and to pay an initial distribution to shareholders, as well as to fund the rehabilitation of the complex.  The amortizing loan has an 18 year final maturity and IFC also provided an interest rate swap.

This financing comes alongside a €51 million loan from German Development bank KfW to the Government of Armenia that is being on-lent to the project to fund the electro-mechanical refurbishment and modernization of the plant.  This on-loan, which also closed on December 29, 2016, has several tranches with maturities ranging from 2025-2050 and will be used to fund the refurbishment works.  As a result of the refurbishment project, new turbines, generators, transformers and auxiliary electrical and mechanical equipment are planned to replace the old equipment in the Tatev, Shamb and Spandaryan hydro power plants, which together make up the Vorotan Facility. This will improve the reliability and safety of operations, prolong the life cycle of the plants and increase the availability factor of the cascade. The refurbishment is planned to be completed in 2021.

Joseph Brandt, President and CEO of ContourGlobal, the parent company of Vorotan, said, “We are very pleased to have completed these innovative long-term financings for Vorotan and we would like to thank our partners at IFC, FMO, DEG and KfW for their commitment to the project.  We would also like to thank the Government of Armenia for their work to facilitate these transactions.  These financings provide a stable, long-term capital structure which allows us to continue our work making sure that the operational performance, safety, reliability and efficiency of this plant are maintained at world-class standards.”

Vorotan is a series of three individual hydroelectric power plants with a total electrical capacity of 405 MW located on the Vorotan River in southern Armenia.  The facility was acquired by ContourGlobal in July, 2015 with IFC concurrently acquiring a 20% interest in the project.

Christian Danielsson, European Union’s Director-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, and Luc Devigne, Director for Russia, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, Regional Cooperation, and OSCE (EEAS) concluded a two-day visit to Armenia.

The EU high level officials visited Armenia on 02-03 February. The two-day working visit to Armenia was a part of the official visit to South Caucasus Region

On 3 February the Director General Danielsson and Director Devigne met with President Serzh Sargsyan, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan and Government Ministers, representatives of civil society to discuss common priorities for further EU-Armenia cooperation.

They discussed the progress of the ongoing negotiations in the new EU-Armenia agreement, which will further deepen these relations. Both sides agreed to focus efforts to support a broad range of reforms in Armenia including public administration and justice sector, fight against corruption, and access to finance, education in order to enhance the country’s economic growth and resilience. This will bring tangible results to citizens and will be important in view of the Brussels Summit in November 2017 and beyond.

As a part of the visit, on 02 February, the Director General Christian Danielsson participated in the official plaque unveiling ceremony of the newly-constructed building of the Court of First Instance in the city of Ijevan, Tavush region financed by the European Union, together with the Minister of Justice of Armenia Arpine Hovhannisyan. In the evening of the same day the Director General met the Armenian youth and held a public lecture and discussion with them in Matenadaran on the future of EU-Armenia relations.

At the end of the visit Christian Danielsson said: “Armenia has many talented young people and a strong capacity for research and innovation.  The EU will continue to invest in Armenia’s future and support the country’s drive for growth and ambitious reform plans to strengthen governance, fight corruption and ensure an independent, impartial and effective judiciary for the benefit of all Armenian citizens”.

The Azerbaijani side used firearms of different calibers, including sniper rifles, as it violated the ceasefire about 30 times at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night.

The rival fired more than 400 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions, the NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The Azerbaijani forces used Instiglal sniper rifles in the southeastern direction, the Ministry said.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army refrained from response actions and confidently continued with their military duty all along the line of contact.

Vietnam will now be granting electronic visas for Armenian citizens.

Vietnam began granting electronic visas for foreign citizens from 40 countries worldwide as from February 1, 2017, the reports.

According to the State news agency, the application will be submitted and the payment will be made online. It will take three days to process application for an e-visa valid for 30 days. The visa does not require letters of guarantee or invitation.

Foreign citizens will be granted  e-visas for exit and entry through international border gates.

The 40 countries include Azerbaijan, Argentina, Armenia, Ireland, Poland, Belarus, Bulgaria, Brunei, South Korea, Germany, Chile, China (not applicable to Chinese e-passport holders), Colombia, Czech Republic, Cuba, Denmark, Timor Leste, United States of America, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Myanmar, Mongolia, Japan, Panama, Peru, Finland, France, The Philippines, Romania, Spain, Sweden,  Uruguay, Venezuela, Norway, and Slovakia.

Photo: Music of Armenia

 

The Armenian Mirror-Spectator – The Friends of Armenian Culture Society (FACS) will present a tribute concert to Ethiopian music icon Nerses Nalbandian, titled “The Emperor, the Nalbandians and the Dawn of Western Music in Ethiopia,” on Sunday, February 19, at 7 p.m. at the Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Theatre for the Arts in Watertown.

The concert will feature the Grammy-nominated Either/Orchestra, directed by Russ Gershon. The E/O will be joined by vocalists performing songs in four languages: Bruck Tesfaye of the Debo Band (Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia), Ronald Murphy (English), Serena Tchorbajian (Armenian) and Manolo Mairena (Spanish). The program will include music Nalbandian composed and arranged during his tenure as music director of the Haile Selassie National Theater (1956-74), as well as music by Nalbandian’s favorites, ranging from Armenian composers to Xavier Cugat and Ray Charles. All of this is interpreted though the jazz lens of the 10-piece E/O, winners of five Boston Music Awards and numerous placements in the Down Beat International Critics Poll.

The event also celebrates the release of the E/O’s CD, “Ethiopiques 32: Nalbandian the Ethiopian” (Buda Musique, Paris), for which the E/O has reconstructed and interpreted Nalbandian’s music in live and studio recordings made in Ethiopia, the US and Canada. The E/O’s previous Ethiopiques release, “Live in Addis,” (2005), was called “astonishing…monumental…the best live album of the year in any genre” by Paul Olsen, AllAboutJazz.com.

Armenian scholar Dr. Boris Adjemian, the director of the AGBU Nubar Library in Paris, will deliver a short pre-concert talk.

Born in 1915 in Aintab, Ottoman Empire, Nerses Nalbandian settled in Aleppo, Syria after his family escaped the Armenian Genocide. He worked as a music teacher and choirmaster at the Armenian Apostolic Church in Syria, before moving to Ethiopia in 1938 at the invitation of his uncle, Kevork Nalbandian. The elder Nalbandian was a well-known musician in Ethiopia and the director of Arba Lijoch (Amharic for “40 children”) an imperial brass band comprised of 40 Armenian orphans. In 1924, future emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie adopted and brought the orphans to his country after he saw them performing in Jerusalem’s Armenian Quarter.

Over decades as a teacher and performer, Nalbandian rose to be appointed music director of the Haile Selassie Theater in 1956. His arrangements of Ethiopian music for Western instruments interpreted traditional and original Ethiopian melodies through an American style big band, laying the groundwork for the development of modern Ethiopian pop and jazz. The pioneers of this music have become internationally recognized in recent years, primarily through Ethiopiques and its curator, Francis Falceto, who considers a Nalbandian album a major missing element in the series — until now.

Nalbandian also composed the original anthem of the Organization of African States (later the African Union), which will be played in the February 19 concert. He received the very rare honor of being naturalized as an Ethiopian citizen by Haile Selassie.

In 2004, during their first visit to Ethiopia, the E/O was heard by Nalbandian’s adult children, who invited Gershon and the band to revive their father’s music for the theater orchestra. (The current theater orchestra has played some of the songs, leaving most untouched). The E/O returned in 2011 to perform full concerts of Nalbandian’s music at the National Theater and other venues. These concerts were recorded by top Ethiopian producer Abegasu Shiota, forming the core of Nalbandian the Ethiopian.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today Christian Danielsson, Director General for Neighborhood & Enlargement Negotiations at the European Commission.

President Sargsyan hailed the intensiveness of Armenia-EU cooperation over the past two years.

The parties voiced hope that the negotiations on a new Framework Agreement would enter a final stage in the near future.

Christian Danielsson attached importance to President Sargsyan’s upcoming visit to Brussels, which, he said, will give new impetus to the development of cooperation.

Among the important achievements of Armenia-EU cooperation, President Sargsyan attached importance to the adoption of the mandate that will allow the Commission to start negotiations on a comprehensive air transport agreement with Armenia.

He pledged the willingness to further promote the cooperation in the fields of reform implementation, freedom of movement, good governance, democracy, human rights and other spheres of reciprocal interest.

The parties exchanged views on a number of regional issues and challenges.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption, after allegations that a former senior member was paid €2.39m  to engineer votes to protect the kleptocratic regime of Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, reports.

Pieter Omtzigt, a centre-right Dutch parliamentarian, is urging PACE leaders to launch a “deep, thorough investigation by an independent panel” that makes its findings public.

“We see a lot of suspicious outcomes of votes and procedures on Azerbaijan,” Omtzigt told the Guardian. The Dutch Christian Democrat is the co-author of a resolution calling for an urgent investigation and overhaul of the assembly’s code of conduct.

The Council of Europe, which was created in 1949 to protect democracy and promote the rule of law, has 47 members including Russia and Turkey. Azerbaijan joined in 2001, but observers have long raised questions about the parliamentary assembly’s weak response to ballot-box stuffing and human rights violations in the oil-rich country.

Human rights groups have blamed “caviar diplomacy”, gifts of gold, silver, silk carpets and the regional fishy delicacy, which are showered on visiting dignitaries to the capital, Baku.

The latest allegations are centred on Italian politician Luca Volontè, the former chair of the centre-right group in the parliamentary assembly. He is being investigated by the Milan public prosecutor’s office for allegedly accepting €2.39m in bribes, in exchange for working for Azerbaijan in the parliamentary assembly. Human rights groups allege he played a key role in orchestrating the defeat of a highly critical report on the abuse of political prisoners in Azerbaijan in 2013. Volontè denies any wrongdoing.

Many senior parliamentarians have warned that failure to carry out an independent investigation would erode the credibility of the human rights body, which was inspired by Winston Churchill, and sends election monitors to every corner of Europe. “It is not credible if you tell other countries to be open and transparent if you do not investigate credible allegations of vote-rigging,” Omtzigt said.

One fifth of PACE’s 324 parliamentarians have signed Omtzigt’s resolution, which states that “recent, serious and credible allegations of grave misconduct” risk undermining public confidence in the assembly. The signatories are a cross-party coalition, drawn from 25 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Greece and Ukraine.

Reuters – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko plans a referendum on whether Ukraine should join the NATO alliance given polls that show 54 percent of Ukrainians now favor such a move, Germany’s Funke Mediengruppe newspaper chain reported Thursday.

“Four years ago, only 16 percent (of the Ukrainian people) favored Ukraine’s entry into NATO. Now it’s 54 percent,” the media group quoted Poroshenko as saying in an interview. “As president, I am guided by the views of my people, and I will hold a referendum on the issue of NATO membership.”

He vowed to “do all I can to achieve membership in the transatlantic alliance” if the people voted in favor.

Manchester United remain four points off the Premier League’s top four after being held to a 0-0 draw by Hull City at Old Trafford, Goal.com reports.

The Red Devils struggled for fluency throughout against Marco Silva’s side and the result could have been worse for them if a superb effort from Lazar Markovic late on had not caught the post.

United’s best chance fell to Juan Mata, who appeared certain to score at the far post when Chris Smalling headed across goal only for Eldin Jakupovic to make a stunning save.

Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool all failed to win in their respective league outings on Tuesday but with Manchester City beating West Ham, Jose Mourinho’s men remain adrift in the race for Champions League qualification.

Refusing from its own soldiers fully fits into Azerbaijani logic, Spokesman of the NKR Defense Ministry Senor Hasratyan has said.

The comments come after the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said yesterday that the Azerbaijani citizen captured by the Karabakh forces on February 1 is not registered in the Armed Forces.

“In response to the report of the NKR Defense Ministry on an infiltration attempt on the part of the Azeri troops, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense issued a statement, claiming that Elnur Huseynzade, captured by Armenian forces had been expelled from the Armed Forces because of being an undisciplined serviceman,” Senor Hasratyan wrote in a Facebook post.

Baku’s refusal from its own soldiers fully fits into Azerbaijani logic, the Spokesman said.

“It’s not understandable and illogical how a serviceman expelled form army could penetrate into a zone between the positions of conflicting troops in military uniform and armed, try to carry out a special mission and get captures as a result,” Senot Hasratyan said.