4TH NOISY KILLING ON SAYAT NOVA AVENUE
Mar 07 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. The Prosecutor’s Office of the Kentron
and Nork-Marash communities carries on the investigation on the fact
of murder taken place on March 4 near the house #22 of the Sayat
Nova avenue in Yerevan. To recap, on that day an alarm was got at
the Police Central Department that shots were listened and there was
a man’s dead body near the mentioned building.
The operative group left for the scene of accident found out that
an unknown person injured “Kakhtsrik” LTD Director Ashot Vardanian
born in 1952 at the head and chest. The man died at place because of
got injuries. 2 fire-arms cases were found out by the examination
of the scence of accident. As it was mentioned in the information
submitted to Noyan Tapan by the Public Relations and Information
Department of the RA Police, this is the 4th case of murder during
the last years on a not big part of the Sayat Nova street. Joshua
Haglund, a U.S citizen was killed in 2005, Karen Mkrtchian, the Dean
of the Yerevan State University Russian Philology Department in 2003,
and Vahram Khorkhoruni, the Military Police Chief was killed at the
entrance of his flat a few years ago.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

‘FROZEN CONFLICT THREATENS TO GROW INTO BLOODY WAR’
By Aghavni Harutyunian
AZG Armenian Daily
15/03/2006
Anna Palacio, former Foreign Minister of Spain, and Daniel Twining,
consultant of the German Marshal Fund in USA, stated that the
political and military influence of Russia grows in Nagorno Karabakh
in the context of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. They
emphasized this in “Shadow Empire of Russia” article published in the
“Washington Post.”
“The armies of both states that fought in a fierce war for that
disputable enclave in the 90-ies, now open fire on each other,” they
stated. According to the authors of the article, “the frozen conflict
may grow into a new fierce war that threatens to the whole region.” On
the other hand, according to PanArmenian .net website, the authors
state that the diplomatic breakthrough in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
is realistic, as the Western governments would support to an agreement
that will make Armenia return the occupied territories to Azerbaijan
and help the Azeri refugees return to their former dwelling places.
Moreover, in this case, Nagorno Karabakh would gain sovereignty until
its fate is defined through a referendum in the near future.
“The West should improve its relations with Azerbaijan for its
efforts to settle the conflict and the reforms they carry out
and stop any punishment measures against this country,” they
said. Palacio and Twining added that the West should demand closure
of the Russian military bases in Armenia that threatens to security of
Azerbaijan. They suggest carrying out a “unique” Marshal plan for the
South Caucasus to help this region follow the path leading to Europe.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PULLING DOWN OF CONSTRUCTIONS IN DALMA GARDENS BEGINS
Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. On March 7, the works of pulling down
the 5 constructions and personal plots attached to them started with
participation of employees of Urban Development and Land Control
Department of Yerevan Mayor’s Office and servicemen of internal
troops. As Stepan Sargsian, department’s first-class specialist,
explained, by RA government’s decision this territory was given
to ArmRusgasprom in 2004 for a 50-year rent. However, because
of 5 unauthorized buildings ArmRusgasprom can’t carry out state
registration of 12 hectares allotted to it. S.Sargsian said that the
building owners have been given time for vacating the territory “for
the purpose of construction of public importance”. And the decision
of Yerevan Mayor’s Office about pulling down the buildings was made
on 2005 May 27, about which the owners were warned.

LEVON ARONIAN IS ON 2ND-4TH PLACES AT LINARES TOURNAMENT
Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2006
LINARES, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. 8 grand masters participated in
the Linares super tournament after the four-days break re-started
the competition struggle. Representative of Armenia Levon Aronian
gained 1 point in three meetings of the second round. He ended the
meeting with Temur Rajabov (Azerbaijan) and Vasili Ivanchuk (Ukraine)
in a draw and lost the game with world champion Veselin Topalov
(Bulgaria). Peter Lecon from Hungary, who got 6.5 points, heads the
tournament table after 10 rounds. Levon Aronian, Veselin Topalov and
Temur Rajabov are on the 2nd-4th places having 5.5 points each. There
are 4 rounds left before the end of the tournament.

NINE TEAMS PARTICIPATE IN HUNAN AVETISIAN’S TRADITIONAL MEMORY TOURNAMENT
Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2006
ARMAVIR, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. Hunan Avetisian’s traditional memory
tournaments are held in the Armavir “Jubilee” sports ground. 9 football
teams participate in the tournament. They will first compete in two
groups. The Gyumri “Shirak,” Yerevan “Ararat-2,” “Banants-2” and the 17
years old team of Armenia are involved in the first group, the Yerevan
“Banants-3,” “Lernayin Artsakh,” “Hay Arin,” Kapan “Gandzasar” and
19 years old team of Armenia are involved in the second group. Teams
taken the first places in the groups will compete for the title of
the memory tournament winner at the final stage.

HAMLET GASPARIAN DOESN’T DENY RUMORS ABOUT ARMENIAN-TURKISH NEGOTIAIONS, BUT REFUTES DETAILS ANNOUNCED BY TURKISH MEDIA
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Mar 07 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. There have been and
will be contacts between the Minitries of Foreign Affairs of Armenia
and Turkey.
Hamlet Gasparian, Spokesman of the RA Mnistry of Foreign Affairs,
announced this at the request of the Noyan Tapan correspondent
commenting on the information published in the Turkish periodical
“The New Anatolian” over the resumption of the Armenian-Turkish closed
negotiations. According to him, the contacts are continuing today,
the Armenian-Turkish relations are being discussed.
The Turkish periodical referring to the diplomatic sources also
reported that the negotiations are being held around three issues:
the recognition of current Armenian-Turkish borders, lifting of the
blockade of the border and the Armenian Genocide.
According to the Turkish periodical, Ankara announced that the issue
of lifting the blockade of the border will be discussed in case
when “the Armenian side withdraws its troops from the 4 Azerbaijani
occupied regions”.
In the connection of the third issue, the Turkish sources announced
that the Armenian side suggested forming a committee consisting of the
parliamentarians of the two countries, in the subcommittee of which
a group of historians will also be included. The Turkish side treated
this suggestion with retaining. But the sides came to an agreement in
order to involve scientists of Turkey, Armenia and Armenian Diaspora
in the subcommittee.
Hamlet Gasparian refuted the above mentioned information, mentioning
that “the details of the publication doesn’t correspond to reality”.

TARIFF PROPOSED BY ARMRUSGASPROM BASED ON ARBITRARY CALCULATIONS, MP MANUK GASPARIAN IS CONVINCED
Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. The tariff for natural gas imported
from Russia should make for the population maximum 70-75 thousand
drams (about 160 USD) for 1000 cubic meters. RA MP Manuk Gasparian,
Chairman of the Democratic Way party, expressed such an opinion in
his March 7 interview to journalists.
The MP promised to put down his mandate if they prove to him that the
tariff proposed by ArmRusgasprom is economically grounded. According
to him, this tariff, 108 thousand drams, is based on arbitrary
calculations.
M.Gasparian said that it’s not accidental that the tariff proposed
for industrial enterprises is mentioned in dollars, 145 USD, amd the
tariff envisaged for the population by drams. According to him, in
case of calculation in dollars the tariff for the population will
make 240 USD or more by 95 USD than the tariff envisaged by the
enterprises. Whereas, in the volume of gas consumption only 10-13%
falls to the population.
M.Gasparian informed that RA Public Services Regulatory Commission
that will examine ArmRusgasprom’s bid on March 10, expressed readiness
to give him all documents connected with tariff calculations.

BELARUS: A CASE OF ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
By Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist
whose articles are published in 45 countries
AZG Armenian Daily
15/03/2006
The ten million citizens of Belarus don’t go to the polls until 19
March, but the outcome is already certain: Alexander Lukashenko will
win a third term as president. Most other governments in Europe,
which see him as the continent’s last dictator, will express their
dismay and claim that the election was unfair.
They will be right in the sense that the opposition has been
mercilessly harassed and that the counting of the votes probably
won’t meet international standards.
But they will be wrong if they really think that Lukashenko would
have lost a fair election.
“It is necessary…to take a stand against this post-Soviet autocrat
and his efforts to totally suppress what remains of independent
initiatives in Belarus,” said former Czech president Vaclav Havel
last year, but Lukashenko does not see autocracy as a bad thing. As
he told Belarusian radio early this month: “An authoritarian ruling
style is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it.
Why?…You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to
ruin people’s lives.”
Belarus has more policemen per capita than any other country in
the world, and a few of Lukashenko’s harshest critics have simply
“disappeared”. Opposition politicians are regularly beaten up or
imprisoned, and people can go to jail for up to two years simply for
openly criticising the president. It is an ugly, petty, oppressive
regime that is reminiscent in many ways of the old Communist tyrannies
— but Lukashenko has won two elections and a referendum in the past
dozen years, all with more than 70 percent of the vote.
He didn’t win them just by stuffing ballot boxes, and although
many people in Belarus feel intimidated by his rule, if they really
constituted an outraged majority then the tool for their liberation
is readily available. In the last five years, disciplined crowds of
non-violent protestors have overthrown similar “post-Soviet autocrats”
in several other post-Soviet states. If the problem is just unfree
elections and intimidation, why don’t Belarusians get rid of their
faintly Chaplinesque dictator that way?
The answer is to be found in the results of an international
opinion poll that was published last week by the Social Research
Institute (TARKI) in Budapest. The survey was conducted last year
in eleven central and eastern European countries that were ruled by
Communist tyrannies for at least a generation until the revolutions
of 1989-91. The only country where a majority of the people polled
preferred the “democratic” systems (some real, some sham) that they
have lived under since then was the Czech Republic, where 52 percent
actively supported democracy and only a small minority longed to have
Communism back.
In most of the former Soviet-bloc countries the nostalgia for Communist
rule was strong, peaking at 38 percent in Bulgaria and 36 percent in
Russia (where only 13 percent favoured democracy). But this is hardly
surprising when you consider that the most people’s experience, in
most of these countries, was that the end of Communist rule brought
a steep fall in living standards and a sharp rise in insecurity and
inequality. For Russia, it also brought the loss of a centuries-old
empire, the “exile” of tens of millions of Russians as minorities
in newly independent countries, and a huge decline in the country’s
power and influence in the world.
These things are not what normally accompanies democracy
elsewhere. They happened in central and eastern Europe partly because
the social and economic costs of converting from a centrally-planned
economy to a free market were bound to be very high, and partly because
the former Communist elite seized the opportunity to “privatise”
the state’s former assets (i.e. almost everything) into their own
pockets. It was an experience that has given democracy a very bad
name in the former Soviet bloc, and only time and the rise of a new
generation will erase these attitudes.
And here we have Belarus, where a former collective-farm manager who
was legitimately elected to power in 1994 halted the privatisation
process before it had properly got underway. Lukashenko has preserved
both the good and the bad elements of the Communist system almost
unchanged (except that the actual Communist Party no longer rules). So
there has not been the same crash in living standards in Belarus,
and there is none of the soaring inequality and unemployment seen in
almost all of its neighbours.
There are also no free media, and secret police everywhere, and
the drab conformity typical of late-period Communist states, and
occasional state violence against “dissidents”. But Lukashenko would
probably have won a majority of the votes honestly in every election
and referendum he has held.
Why has it happened this way in Belarus and not elsewhere? Partly pure
chance, but Belarus was also an ideal candidate because it has a very
weak national identity (most people there actually speak Russian).
There is little of the nationalism that helped most other former
Soviet countries to persevere with the changes, and many Belarusians
would be happy to be reunited with Russia. But even there they would
have to undergo many of the painful changes that they have avoided
by choosing to live in this time warp.
Sooner or later they will have to go through them anyway, but not
yet. Not in this election.

RUSAL-ARMENAL TO MANUFACTURE IN MARCH FIRST 100 TONS OF PRODUCTION AFTER BEING RELAUNCHED
Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. RusAl-ArmenAl CJSC resumed its operation
in February and will manufacture the first 100 tons of its production
in March.
Artur Ashughian, Head of the Nature Use Economics and Mining Industry
Department of the RA Ministry of Trade and Economic Development,
said it at the March 7 press conference.
In his words, in 2005 alone, the company made investments of 39
mln euros for equipment modernization, which allowed the company
to produce 7 micron wide foil which is in great demand on the
international market.
To recap, work on re-equipment of RusAl-ArmenAl started in the
4th quarter of 2004. The first stage of the work was completed in
December 2005. 70 mln USD was spent on re-equipment of the enterprise,
with 30-35% of this amount being spent as salaries and payments for
equipment supply.
It is envisaged that since 2006 the enterprise will produce 25 thousand
tons of foil a year, with an annual production of 9 micron wide foil
amounting to 18 thousand tons.

FROM APRIL 10 FLIGHTS FROM “ZVARTNOTS” AIRPORT TO BE IMPLEMENTED ONLY AT NIGHT HOURS
Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2006
YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. From April 10, on the occasion of the
reconstruction of the runway of the “Zvartnots” airport of Yerevan,
during 80 days the flights will be implemented only at night hours
(from 20:00 to 10:30). As Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed from
the press service of the airport, repair works of the asphalt cover
will be implemented in the last 1200-meter part of the runway. The
rest parts were repaired during the last two years.