Author: Dabaghian Diana

BURNT AND CRASHED EQUIPMENT BEING DISMANTLED AT NAIRIT PLANT CJSC

ArmInfo
2009-05-18 16:24:00

ArmInfo. Dismantling of the equipment burnt and crashed as a result
of the recent accident at the chloroprene workshop at Nairit Plant
CJSC started on May 18, the plant press-service told ArmInfo.

The dismantling is carried out by Vagros LLC, former Armprodmontazh,
which held the main assembly works at the plant during the
Soviet period. Taking into account the high risk of the work,
only the dismantling is preliminarily estimated at 20 mln AMD ($54
thsd). This work should be done to prevent a new possible explosion
or fire. The total amount of the damage caused by the accident is
being calculated. The press-service of Nairit Plant says that the
plant and employees were not insured.

To recall, four people died at the plant as a result of the accident:
Levon Levonyan (born in 1959), Hovhannes Hovhannisyan (1959), Vahan
Grigoryan (1959), and Artur Karapetyan (1970).

To note, Nairit Plant is the only producer of chloroprene rubber
in Armenia and the CIS. The owner of 90% of the plant shares is the
international company Rhinoville Property Limited, and 10% of shares
belong to the state.

Rhin®ville Property Limited was founded by Samex (Poland), Intertex
(USA), and Eurogas (Russia).

NKR JOURNALISTS FOOTBALL TEAM WINS CIS TOURNAMENT

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
18.05.2009 11:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The 10th CIS journalists’ football tournament has
finished in Stepanakert, the capital of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

The tournament was held under the sponsorship of NKR President Bako
Sahakyan, Association of Foreign Journalists and NKR State Sports
Committee.

Novice NKR team won the tournament. The Armenian team came
5th. Journalists from Samtskhe Javakheti were defeated by Lithuanian
fellows and took the 4th place.

Best players of the tournament were awarded special prizes.

HUMAN RIGHTS NOT PROTECTED IN AZERBAIJAN

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
16.05.2009 13:40 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ According to Azerbaijani political scientists and
experts, Georgia is a leading democracy in the South Caucasus. Armenia
is in the second place.

Explaining their motivation, the experts said that there is freedom
of assembly both in Georgia and Armenia. Meanwhile, Azeri opposition
and citizens are not ready to struggle for their rights.

The poll conducted by Mirror Azeri newspaper engaged Hikmet
Hajizade, Zardusht Alizade, Leyla Aliyeva, Rasim Musabekov and
Novella Jafaroglu. From the Georgian side, Georgy Chkheidze, Georgy
Margvelashvili and Archi Gegeshidze participated. However, Georgian
experts did not rank the countries.

ARMENIA IN TALKS WITH WORLD BANK ON LOAN TO COVER BUDGET DEFICIT

Interfax
May 14 2009
Russia

Armenia is in talks with the World Bank on a loan to cover the 2009
budget deficit, the director of the World Bank’s representation in
Armenia, Aristomene Varoudakis, told journalists on Wednesday.

The talks are ongoing he said. The World Bank board of governors will
consider the loan at a meeting in July.

He did not specify the loan amount.

The loan would provide a safety net for the most vulnerable segments
of the population, he said. The World Bank forecasts that 27.2% of
Armenians will be living below the poverty line in 2009, up from 22.7%
in 2008.

The World Bank and the Armenian government are also discussing economic
development scenarios in the coming years. The World Bank tentatively
forecasts that the economic situation will begin to normalize in 2010,
he said.

NOSTALGIA FOR THE COLD WAR

ir/analysis/090514georgia.php
May 14, 2009

We have often said, stability in Georgia is as important as Armenia’s
own stability. And the consistently unpredictable situation there
raises alarm and poses questions.

Most of the issues related to the situation in Georgia are
very apparent, very obvious, very over-reported, and quite
under-explained. There is no need to talk about good guys and bad guys,
bullies and victims. The ingredients causing friction, contestation
and conflict are basically questions of legitimacy, geopolitics in
a historic context, geopolitics in the current dynamic, and a global
game reminiscent of the Cold War.

The Cold War it seems is a war that refuses to die or
disappear. Whether it is reflex, paradigm or an ineradicable perception
of Europe and its neighborhood, the slightest new contestation
reawakens the old patterns of response.

There are many, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili chief among
them, who believe and want others to believe, that the crisis or
threat are exclusively of Russian manipulation.

This seems to ignore the complaints of the domestic opposition in its
own right. Economic grievances, political crispation, favoritism,
arbitrariness, the absence of effective checks and balances are
superseded. Many in the international community, on the ground in
Tbilisi, sense the feeling of betrayal on the part of those f or whom
the promises of the Rose Revolution have been at best, only partially
and unevenly addressed and realized. The explanation of the Georgian
leadership that much has indeed been accomplished has not satisfied
the disenchanted. This may be the natural consequence of expectations
that accompany revolutionary vs. evolutionary change. Perhaps to
compensate for this, the Georgian regime reduces Georgia’s domestic
social and political sources of instability to essentially, if not
totally, external machinations and provocations.

This rationalization entails a few risks, some more serious than
others.

Accusing Russia does not discourage Russia nor compel it to moderate
or change its designs. In fact, Russia’s response can become a
self-fulfilling process.

Then there is the logic of reciprocal provocation. If Russia pushes
President Saakashvili to over-react, over-step, appear to be crying
wolf and act like a victim, this can result in reduced credibility
for Saakashvili, as it did in some international circles following
August 2008, and diminished political support at home.

For Georgia, this game of provocation has its own logic. The thinking
is that if Russia is pushed to act tough, then Georgia’s friends in
the West, including and especially NATO and the US, will hopefully
act tougher.

After all, the West couldn’t possibly leave unchallenged Russian
"expansionism" or Russian bullying in the near abroad,=2 0since there
are some on all sides who consider accommodation to be appeasement
or retreat.

In the context of a geopolitical linear zero-sum game, Georgia can hope
to mobilize unconditional support from friends in the Pentagon and
NATO. The more Russian engagement appears to be obvious provocation,
the more likely it is to trigger the West’s determined response
to resist.

If the Cold War is not fully over, then this Georgian calculus is
not unjustified. However, in Moscow, Brussels and Washington today,
and within some NATO members, there must be room on the broader global
chessboard for give and take between regions, without limiting such
competition to the South Caucasus alone. There does not need to be
confrontation everywhere that there is a clash of interests. It must
be possible to give and take across regions and allow tensions to
decrease locally.

In other words, Georgia is not the whole story. What the West —
NATO and the US – must consider is whether there is going to be
back-tracking from cold peace to cold war. If not, the global jigsaw
puzzle has many more pieces than just Georgia, and by moving a few
of them, confrontation in our back yard may be averted.

SPEAKER OF NAGORNO KARABAKH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WELCOMES YOUTH ACTIVITIES

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
14.05.2009 23:55 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On May 14 Ashot Gulyan, speaker of the Nagorno
Karabakh National Assembly, met with the delegation of Armenia’s
youth organizations taking part in the conference "Youth, reality,
perspectives, Artsakh". Speaker Ashot Gulyan presented historical and
political base of the Karabakh problem, the process of the settlement
of the conflict, press office of the National Assembly of NKR reports.

TURKEY’S CABINET RESHUFFLE ANOTHER BALANCING ACT
by Amberin Zaman

Today’s Zaman
May 13 2009
Turkey

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, announced his
long-awaited new Cabinet on May 1, ushering in nine new ministers and
letting go of eight others. It is too early to predict what impact
the new configuration will have on domestic and foreign policy. Is
the party going more conservative? Or does the reshuffle point toward
a return to its early reformist zeal.

The most likely answer is neither. The reshuffle, though dramatic
in its scope, reflects Erdogan’s hallmark strategy of balancing
different and often competing constituencies within his party. The
biggest surprise was the elevation of Bulent Arınc, the fiery former
parliament speaker, who leads the conservative/religious wing of
Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as first deputy
prime minister. His return from the back benches is a sure sign that
Erdogan is worried by the gains made by the pro-Islamic Felicity Party
(SP) in the March 29 local polls. Overtly pious, Arınc has long railed
against corruption within and around the AK Party. A gifted orator,
Arınc enjoys greater moral authority than any other AK Party leader,
Erdogan included. Co-opting Arınc through a Cabinet job may help
curb his influence among Islamist malcontents within the AK Party.

In a sop to the nationalists, Cemil Cicek retained his twin hats as
deputy prime minister and state minister. His verbal salvoes against
non-Muslim minorities bodes ill for rapprochement with Armenia
or any overtures on the Cyprus dispute, as they do for EU reforms
as a whole. Cicek will un­doubtedly continue to mobilize fellow
nationalists within the AK Party against concessions on both.

To appease the liberals, Erdogan shifted Nimet Cubukcu from women’s
affairs to the highly sensitive Ministry of Education. Her predecessor,
Huseyin Celik, had become the target of pro-secularists over his
repeated attempts to legitimize Islamic education. Cubukcu, a lawyer
by training, is a vocal advocate of girls’ education. Prior to joining
the AK Party, she was a member of the Ä°stanbul branch of the main
opposition pro-secular Republican People’s Party (CHP). Among her chief
mentors is AyÅ~_e Böhurler, an influential found­ing member of the AK
Party and a member of its executive board. She is among a handful of AK
Party members who dare to publicly criticize Erdogan. Böhurler wears
the Islamic-style headscarf, which excludes her from running for the
Parliament; for the uninitiated it belies a sharply feminist streak.

The good news for the financial community is the return of Ali Babacan,
Turkey’s foreign minister, to his previous job as the country’s
minister of the economy, a portfolio he is obviously more comfortable
with. This time Babacan has been given overall coordinating authority
for the economy. Bright, young and affable, Babacan has excellent
relations with Western bankers. His immediate task will be to persuade
Erdogan of the need for a fresh International Monetary Fund (IMF)
deal that is a crucial anchor for foreign investor confidence.

For the outside world, the most closely watched Cabinet post is that
of foreign minister, filled by Erdogan’s top foreign policy advisor,
Ahmet Davutoglu. He is the sole newcomer without a Parliamentary
seat. Nor is he formally a member of the AK Party. Rumors that the
former academic would be replacing Babacan had been swirling around for
sometime. Since Abdullah Gul left his job as foreign minister in 2007
to become the president, it has been the self-effacing Davutoglu who
has been guiding Turkish foreign policy, albeit from behind the scenes.

Turkey’s Western friends, and the former Bush administra­tion in
particular, viewed him at first with great suspicion, not least because
of his overtures to Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Davutoglu is believed
to have helped orchestrate Meshaal’s visit to Ankara soon after Hamas’
election victory in January 2006. Davutoglu, many believed, wanted
to steer Turkey away from the West.

Today, Davutoglu is credited with bolstering Turkey’s regional clout
through a blizzard of overtures not only to Turkey’s long-neglected
Arab neighbors and to Iran, but to far-flung spots in Africa and
Asia as well. Davutoglu’s multi-pronged, proactive diplomacy (some
label it "neo-Ottomanism") sees Turkey rising to its rightful place
as a global power. The first step is to have "zero problems" with
its neighbors, and to help its neighbors have "zero problems" among
themselves. Turkey’s mediation between Syria and Israel (with talks
collapsing when Israel launched its January offensive against Gaza)
is the best example of Davutoglu’s approach. The second step means
brokering peace between Israel and its other regional foes: Lebanon,
Iran and Iraq. The "zero problem" phase would be followed by "maximum
coopera­tion," leading to a web of economic, political and cultural
ties with Turkey at its center.

It’s no coincidence that the radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada
al-Sadr chose to meet with his Shiite peers in Ä°stanbul after staying
out of public view the past two years. Turkey prides itself on its
connections to the different ethnic and religious factions in Iraq,
much of these forged by Davutoglu. The new foreign minister has
earned the respect of Washington and speaks enthusiastically of "a
golden age in Turkish-US ties," where the regional interests of both
countries converge. Davutoglu believes that between American muscle
and Turkish mediation most of the region’s problems can be solved.

There is little doubt that the Obama administration wants to trade in
on Turkey’s regional role. That is why the US president chose Turkey
for his first bilateral visit (not count­ing Canada) to a foreign
country. But there are several worries. One is that Davutoglu’s vision
of Turkey as a global player does not fit naturally with that of an
EU country, which makes decisions based on consensus among its members.

Davutoglu insists that EU membership remains among Turkey’s primary
goals, with the understanding that it is precisely thanks to Turkey’s
EU candidate status and its close links to Israel and the United States
that Ankara is taken so seriously by the rest of the world. The other
more pertinent worry is that Davutoglu is so used to freelancing that
he may have trouble adjusting to the constraints of being a minister
who needs to take account of his subordinates’ views. As an advisor,
Davutoglu was able to navigate successfully between the sometimes
clashing policies of Gul and Erdogan. The most recent example of this
was when Gul supported the for­mer Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen’s bid to become NATO’s new secretary general. Erdogan was
vocally opposed. As foreign minister, Davutoglu will continue to liase
with Gul, but it is the prime minister who will have the final say.

This, in turn, raises the question of where Erdogan wants to lead
Turkey. The composition of the new Cabinet suggests that he will pursue
his balancing act, seeking to appease nationalists and liberals alike
and ploughing ahead with EU membership while bolstering ties with
the United States, the Arab world and beyond.

With Nagorno-Karabakh back into the mix, Erdogan’s local rivals,
no­tably the main opposition — the CHP and the far-right
National­ist Movement Party (MHP) — have jumped into the fray,
accusing the government of selling out "our Azeri brothers." The
results of nationwide municipal elections haven’t helped,
either. Erdogan’s AK Party saw its share of the popular vote slide

*Amberin Zaman is the Turkey correspondent for The Economist and
writes a weekly column for the Turkish daily Taraf. This article was
published by the US-based German Marshall Fund on May 11.

ARMENIA WILL TAKE 8TH PLACE IN EUROVISION SEMIFINAL, FORECASTS SAY

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
12.05.2009 21:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Readers and members of independent Eurovision Song
Contest website have been predicting the outcome of each Semifinal,
and the results are grouped geographically and then worked out based
on the Eurovision Song Contest scoring Prediction.

Over 100,000 predictions have been made by more than 6,000 members
of esctoday.com.

The 10 countries predicted to qualify from tonight’s semi final are:

1. Turkey
2. Bosnia Herzegovina
3. Sweden
4. Iceland
5. Malta
6. Finland
7. Romania
8. Armenia
9. Portugal
10. Switzerland

Contest participants from 18 countries, including Inga and Anush with
their song, Nor Par, will be competing for passage to the finals of
May 16.

First contest evening will be hosted by supermodel Natalya Vodyanova
and TV presenter Andrey Malakhov.

After all songs have been performed, viewers can vote by making a
phone call or sending an SMS for their favorite songs. Ten qualified
countries will be announced at the end of each Semifinal.

FIRST SEMIFINAL OF EUROVISION 2009 DUE TODAY

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
12.05.2009 18:49 GMT+04:00

Eurovision 2009 First Semifinal is due today at Moscow’s Olimpiysky
Arena. Contest participants from 18 countries, including Inga and
Anush with their song, Nor Par, will be competing for passage to the
finals of May 16.

First contest evening will be hosted by supermodel Natalya Vodyanova
and TV presenter Andrey Malakhov.

After all songs have been performed, viewers can vote by making a
phone call or sending an SMS for their favorite songs. Ten qualified
countries will be announced at the end of each Semi-Final.

The song Nor Par (Jan-jan) is composed by Mane Hakobyan, to the verse
of Vardan Zadoyan and Avet Barsegyan. Designer Trio Fresh Art created
the girls’ image.

IMF FORECASTS 5% GDP DROP IN ARMENIA BY END-2009

ARKA
May 11, 2009

YEREVAN, May 11. /ARKA/. The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
forecasts up to 5% GP drop in Armenia by end-2009, IMF Mission Chief
for Armenia Mark Lewis said today presenting the Regional Economic
Outlook: Caucasus and Central Asia Report.

IMF previously forecast a 4.5% inflation and minus 1.5% economic
slowdown in Armenia by end-2009.

Gloomier forecasts are due to a considerable slowdown in Armenia’s
construction sector in 2009, the IMF mission chief said, citing last
year’s economic boom in Armenia.

According to the short-range forecasts of the organization, Armenia
is likely to post a considerable drop in mining industry, due to the
tumbling prices of metal in the global market.

However, Lewis cited stabilization of the situation in Armenia in 2010,
thanks to which the country will post a zero growth.

Citing a 6.1% quarterly drop in economy, IMF Resident Representative
in Armenia Ninke Oomes said the organization forecasts 3.6% inflation
in the country this year, compared to 7.2% in 2010.

According to IMF, Russia is likely to post a record economic slowdown
of minus 6% (IMF forecasts a 0.5% GDP growth in Russia in 2010)
and the economic growth is supposed to be minus 1.3%.

According to WB forecasts, Armenia is likely to post zero economic
growth by end-2009.