ONE MORE HUMANITARIAN PROGRAM TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN ARTSAKH ON INITIATIVE OF BARONESS COX
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Baroness Caroline
Cox, Vice-Speaker of the British Parliament’s House of Lords, is
going to again visit Artsakh, this time with a new humanitarian
program. Her partners are Daniel Lillis, representative of The
Children’s Hospital Trust Fund, Kathy Mellor, responsible person
of the Birth Link organization. They will provide humanitarian and
technical assistance to the newborn babies reanimation center to open
in Stepanakert within the framework of the program. This center to
open in Artsakh will become the branch of the center of the same name
of Yerevan University Hospital N 3.
As doctor-anaesthetist Hrant Kalenterian, responsible person of the
Yerevan center, said at the July 25 press conference, the center serves
the maternity hospitals acting in the whole territory of Armenia. The
center of Artsakh will be smaller and will serve the whole territory
of Nagorno Karabakh. The doctors of the center will pass 6-12-month
retraining with the assistance of the international partners soon.
Baroness Cox said that Kathy Mellor, representative of the Birth
Link organization, visited Karabakh six years ago and has implemented
various programs there up to present. “My goal is to bring many people
to Armenia and Karabakh for them to tell the truth about Armenians
and Karabakh in the future,” Caroline Cox emphasized. She highlighted
that no propaganda is necessary for this as Azerbaijanis do that,
people should just come to Armenia and Karabakh, see the truth and
tell the world about the Armenian Genocide, Nagorno Karabakh war’s
real picture and Armenian people.

PROCECUTOR’S OFFICE TO PERFORM NOT A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION BUT ITS LEGALITY CONTROL
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. According to the legislative amendments’
concept in the RA Legal field, the investigation body will be taken
out from the prosecutor’s office’s system. Davit Haroutiunian, RA
minister of justice, informed about this on July 25. In his words,
the police and other bodies implementing pre-judicial enquiry will
implement the investigation.
The prosecutor’s office will perform control over the legality of
investigation and preliminary investigation. The investigation will
start after receiving information about the crime, from which also
the control of the prosecutor’s office starts. In case of lack of
the corpus delicti, police can stop the investigation independently.
The prosecutor’s office is competent to give assignments to the body
implementing pre-judicial enquiry, to stop the criminal pursuit,
to take part in any investigation action. The prosecutor’s office
is also competent to liquidate illegal actions, but cannot be an
obstacle for the implementation of powers of the body implementing
pre-judicial enquiry. From the beginning of the criminal enquiry until
the presenting the accusation, whole function will be implemented by
the same prosecutor.
In the justice minister’s words, so an attempt is made to disconnect
the powers of the prosecutor’s office and the pre-investigation body,
keeping the self-dependence of each of them.
Answering the Noyan Tapan correspondent, D.Haroutiunian mentioned that
according to the new concept, the prosecutor’s office is not obliged
to institute an action on the basis of the mass media’s publication,
though it has that competence.

MORE THAN 600 PEOPLE ARRIVE IN ARMENIA FROM LEBANON AND ISRAEL SINCE
BEGINNING OF OPERATIONS, ANOTHER 120 PEOPLE TO ARRIVE TOMORROW
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. A consultation
dedicated to Armenia’s possibilities to provide a humanitarian
assistance to Lebanon that suffered from war took place on July
26 at RA Government, by the instruction of RA Prime Minister. The
consultation was conducted by RA Minister of Territorial Government
Hovik Abrahamian.
According to RA Government Press Service, the consultation participants
discussed issues relating to providing possible first and foremost
aid according to the list provided by Lebanon, as well as delivery
of this aid and other organization issues.
Proceeding from the above mentioned possibilities, it was decided
to provide medicines, equipments and tents to Lebanese people that
suffered from the humanitarian disaster. RA Minister of Economy and
Finance was instructed to prepare a draft government decision after
coordinating the issue with the Prime Minister, for the purpose of
submitting the draft decision for approval on July 27. After making
a decision the aid will be sent the same day by a plane flying late
in the evening to Aleppo.
RA Deputy Foreign Minister and Head of Migration Department of
RA Ministry of Territorial Government presented the work done in
the direction of moving RA and foreign citizens from Lebanon to
Armenia. It was mentioned that more than 550 compatriots have been
moved from Lebanon to Armenia up to this day and another 54 people
have arrived from Israel. It is expected that another 120 people will
arrive in Armenia by a special flight on July 27. These are mainly RA
citizens, but foreign citizens are also moved to Armenia, 51 of which
have already applied to the Migration Agency with a request to receive
a status of temporarily protected persons. 49 of them are Lebanese,
2 Israelis. As the head of the agency said, this status will be given
to them together with the certificate of temporary residence.
In consideration of the fact that the number of persons moving from
the Near Eastern region to Armenia is increasing and not all of them
have relatives or possibility of staying in our country, it was also
charged to discuss the possibilities of providing assistance to them
by preparing the respective draft decision of government if necessary.

DAVIT HAROUTIUNIAN: “MAYBE I AM A BAD SOLDIER BUT I DON’T WANT TO BECOME A GENERAL”
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. RA Minister of Justice Davit
Haroutiunian will be included in the political sphere, but he will
pretend to the post of the President of the country neither in the
coming elections, nor ever. He announced about this at the July 25
meeting with the journalists. “You can consider me a bad soldier,
but I don’t want to become a general,” mentioned the minister of
justice in response to the Noyan Tapan correspondent.
For the purpose of promoting political activity, Davit Haroutiunian,
in his words, is not going to found a new party. He mentioned that
he rejected this variant from the beginning as he considers such
idea depreciated as a result of emergence of a number “egocenter”
parties in Armenia.
Informing that he was going to join one of the present parties,
Haroutiunian mentioned that he was not ready to give any information
about this yet. “I will announce my decision when I decide my next
step”, said the minister in response to the questions about his
joining Prosperous Armenia and or Republican Parties.
Haroutiunian mentioned that there are parties which he will never
join, but he refused to name them. At the same time, in his words,
there exist a number of parties in the political sphere of the country
“about joining which it is worth thinking.” In the minister’s words,
such parties are already formed, and the constitutional amendments
will inevitably bring to increase in the qualify of political sphere.

ARMENIAN FIXED TELEPHONE NETWORK PASSED OVER TO RUSSIAN COMPANY
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian fixed telephone network,
the monopoly of which belongs to ArmenTel, will be passed over to
the MTS company making part of the Sistema Russian holding. As NT
correspondent was informed from unofficial sources, ArmenTel will be
officially passed over in late August, after an agreement is signed
between the sides.
According to some information, the Russian side is already studying
ArmenTel’s activity on the spot for the purpose of assuming its
management.
As for the ArmenTel’s mobile communication, according to some Russian
media, it will be governed by an international consortium formed with
participation of the Indian VTEL Holding and Knigtsbridge companies.
To recap, the OTE Greek company, to which 90 percent of ArmeTel’s
shares belongs, sells its shares through an international tender,
the organization of which has assumed HSBC bank. The tender results
will be published in early August.

COMPETITION ON MINERAL WATERS MARKET IS LARGE IN ARMENIA,
JERMUK GROUP CJSC CHAIRMAN’S ADVISER SAYS
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. The competition on the mineral
waters market of Armenia is large, as there are Bjni, Arzni, Jermuk
and a number of other companies producing mineral waters. As Edgar
Ghazarian, Adviser of the Jermuk CJSC Chairman, said in his interview
to NT correspondent, the main competition is among local companies,
as the amount of imported mineral water is small and it does not have
any impact on the competition on the local market.
In E.Ghazarian’s words, though the company founded in 1999 increases
the volume of production year by year, the production volume in the
first six months of this year has remained unchanged as compared with
the same period of the previous year, and its sale has decreased by
four percent.
At the same time, it was mentioned that company’s exports have
increased by 23 percent this year compared with the first half
year of 2005. Jermuk Group exports it production to 14 countries,
including Canada, U.S., Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Russia,
Ukraine. E.Ghazarian also said that this year the production of Jermuk
CJSC has received a certificate of correspondence to EU requirements,
which enables to export the plant’s production to EU member-countries.
It was mentioned that the plant is periodically replenished with
modern European equipments and production lines. As E.Ghazarian said,
the new annex of Jermuk Group CJSC will be ready by the end of the
year and a new production line of European production will be brought
from Austria, which will give a possibility to increase exports of
mineral water.

PEPSI PLANT TO BE BUILT IN COMING TWO YEARS IN ARMENIA
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. The official representative of
American Pepsi company in Armenia, Jermuk Group CJSC, will built a
plant producing Pepsi drink in the coming two years in Armenia. As NT
correspondent was informed by Adviser to Jermuk Group CJSC Chairman,
Edgar Ghazarian, this right was given to Jermuk Group by the PepsiCo
company. In his words, the place to built the plant is clarified
at present.
As he said, starting 2002, Jermuk Group imports Pepsi’s production
to Armenia from plants producing Pepsi in Russia and Georgia. After
building its plant Jermuk Group will stop to import Pepsi from the
above mentioned countries.
By the way, Jermuk Group CSJC is also the official representative
in Armenia of Russian Baltika and German Bavaria companies producing
beer. In E.Ghazarian’s words, though beer of local production is of
much demand on the Armenian market, there are consumers who prefer
foreign beer. E.Ghazarian also said that as compared with the first
six months of the previous year, in 2006 exports of Pepsi, Baltika
and Bavaria have increased three times.

ACCORDING TO WB DATA, FREQUENCY OF BRIBING BY ARMENIAN COMPANIES REMAINS UNCHANGED
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. According to the latest evaluations of
the World Bank, the frequency of bribing by Armenian companies in 2005
as compared with 2002 has remained unchanged. At the same time, the
WB report titled “Fighting Corruption in Countries with Transitional
Economy” read that in Armenia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan the data of
2002 and 2005 are almost the same, which shows that corruption is not
considered such a serious problem there as in another CIS countries.
In spite of the fact that in Croatia, Lithuania, Armenia and Hungary
the proportion of bribes’ “tax load” in the revenues of companies
has not essentially changed in the above mentioned three years,
the quick growth of these countries’ economies gives an occasion
to suppose that the total amount of resources spent on bribes have
considerably increased in this period.
According to WB’s survey on business environment and entrepreneurial
activity, in the period from 2002 to 2005 corruption as a problem
impeding business has been considerably mitigated in Bulgaria, Latvia,
Slovakia, Ukraine, Georgia and Slovenia, whereas the situation in
Albania, Russia and Azerbaijan has considerably worsened and in
Armenia and Macedonia it has become a more serious problem.

RETURN GAMES OF UEFA CUP TOURNAMENT TO BE HELD ON JULY 27
YEREVAN, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. In July 26 morning, “Mika” team
of Armenia left for Switzerland by the Yerevan-Amsterdam-Zurich
flight. There, on July 27, the Armenian football players will compete
with “Young Boys” team of the city of Bern in the return game of the
qualification first tour of the UEFA Cup Tournament. The game will
start at 22:30 by Yerevan time.
On the same day, at 19:00 the Yerevan “Banants” will receive the
Tbilisi “Ameri” in the return game of the qualification tour in the
Republican stadium of Yerevan.

LILIT MKRTCHIAN STILL HAS ONE POINT
KRASNOTURINSK, JULY 26, NOYAN TAPAN. On July 25, the meetings of the
third tour of the ladies chess North Ural Cup international supper
tournament were held in Krasnoturinsk. Lilit Mkrtchian, representative
of Armenia, ended the game with the Lithuanian Victoria Chmilite
in a draw. L.Mkrtchian is in the 8th place with one point in the
competition among 10 participants.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress