Category: 2017

Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
 Friday


Armenia's position on status of Jerusalem remains unchanged – MFA spokesman



YEREVAN, DECEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Armenia attentively follows all
developments with regard to Jerusalem since the Armenian Apostolic
Church is one of the guardians of the Christian Holy Places, Armenian
foreign ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan told ARMENPRESS.

“Armenia has already expressed its position on the status of Jerusalem
and has not changed it. The status of Jerusalem is one of the most
important issues on the international agenda and should be solved
through the negotiations within the context of the acceptable solution
for the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This can pave the
way for the establishment of a lasting peace and security”, he said.

Tigran Balayan stated that Jerusalem has a centuries old Armenian
presence, a rich Armenian historical and cultural heritage. “Armenian
Apostolic Church is one of the guardians of the Christian Holy Places.
Therefore, we attentively follow all developments with regard to
Jerusalem. We took note of the recently expressed positions on
Jerusalem recognizing that they do not prejudice the determination of
the final status of Jerusalem through negotiations”, the MFA spokesman
noted.

The UN General Assembly on December 21 adopted a resolution calling on
the US to refrain from its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel. 128 states voted in favor of the resolution, 35
abstained and 9 were against.

Armenia also voted in favor of the resolution.

Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
 Friday


Germany aware of Turkey's attacks being planned against
Turkish-Armenians living in Europe



YEREVAN, DECEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The German law enforcement agencies
have announced that they are aware of the statement issued by ethnic
Armenian lawmaker of the Turkish parliament Garo Paylan according to
which assassination attempts are being planned against
Turkish-Armenians and Turkish-Alevis living in several European
countries, in particular in Germany, Deutsche Welle reports.

The law enforcement agencies said they are observing the reports on
possible attacks.

“We are aware of the aforementioned danger, we carefully observe the
situation. But we cannot provide further details on the situation and
defense measures”, the statement says.

Garo Paylan, an ethnic Armenian lawmaker of the Turkish parliament,
announced during a press conference in the parliament that he has an
intelligence data according to which an assassination attempt is being
planned against the Turkish-Armenians settled in Europe. Paylan
informed that the assassination attempts are being organized by a
structure operating in Turkey. “I have information that certain groups
are preparing an operation against Turkish-Alevis and
Turkish-Armenians living in Europe, as well as journalists, writers,
academicians who were forced to leave Turkey under the ruling Justice
and Development Party which must create a great reaction”, Paylan
said. The lawmaker refused to inform from where he has received this
information.

Associated Press International
 Friday 5:19 PM GMT


Russian hackers hunted journalists in years-long campaign

By RAPHAEL SATTER, JEFF DONN and NATALIYA VASILYEVA, Associated Press


PARIS (AP) - Russian television anchor Pavel Lobkov was in the studio
getting ready for his show when jarring news flashed across his phone:
Some of his most intimate messages had just been published to the web.

Days earlier, the veteran journalist had come out live on air as
HIV-positive, a taboo-breaking revelation that drew responses from
hundreds of Russians fighting their own lonely struggles with the
virus. Now he'd been hacked.

"These were very personal messages," Lobkov said in a recent
interview, describing a frantic call to his lawyer in an abortive
effort to stop the spread of nearly 300 pages of Facebook
correspondence, including sexually explicit messages. Even two years
later, he said, "it's a very traumatic story."

The Associated Press found that Lobkov was targeted by the hacking
group known as Fancy Bear in March 2015, nine months before his
messages were leaked. He was one of at least 200 journalists,
publishers and bloggers targeted by the group as early as mid-2014 and
as recently as a few months ago.

The AP identified journalists as the third-largest group on a hacking
hit list obtained from cybersecurity firm Secureworks, after
diplomatic personnel and U.S. Democrats. About 50 of the journalists
worked at The New York Times. Another 50 were either foreign
correspondents based in Moscow or Russian reporters like Lobkov who
worked for independent news outlets. Others were prominent media
figures in Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics or Washington.

The list of journalists provides new evidence for the U.S.
intelligence community's conclusion that Fancy Bear acted on behalf of
the Russian government when it intervened in the U.S. presidential
election. Spy agencies say the hackers were working to help Republican
Donald Trump. The Russian government has denied interfering in the
American election.

Previous AP reporting has shown how Fancy Bear - which Secureworks
nicknamed Iron Twilight - used phishing emails to try to compromise
Russian opposition leaders, Ukrainian politicians and U.S.
intelligence figures, along with Hillary Clinton campaign chairman
John Podesta and more than 130 other Democrats.

Lobkov, 50, said he saw hacks like the one that turned his day
upside-down in December 2015 as dress rehearsals for the email leaks
that struck the Democrats in the United States the following year.

"I think the hackers in the service of the Fatherland were long
getting their training on our lot before venturing outside."

___

"CLASSIC KGB TACTIC"

New Yorker writer Masha Gessen said it was also in 2015 - when
Secureworks first detected attempts to break into her Gmail - that she
began noticing people who seemed to materialize next to her in public
places in New York and speak loudly in Russian into their phones, as
if trying to be overheard. She said this only happened when she put
appointments into the online calendar linked to her Google account.

Gessen, the author of a book about Russian President Vladimir Putin's
rise to power, said she saw the incidents as threats.

"It was really obvious," she said. "It was a classic KGB intimidation tactic."

Other U.S.-based journalists targeted include Josh Rogin, a Washington
Post columnist, and Shane Harris, who was covering the intelligence
community for The Daily Beast in 2015. Harris said he dodged the
phishing attempt, forwarding the email to a source in the security
industry who told him almost immediately that Fancy Bear was involved.

In Russia, the majority of journalists targeted by the hackers worked
for independent news outlets like Novaya Gazeta or Vedomosti, though a
few - such as Tina Kandelaki and Ksenia Sobchak - are more mainstream.
Sobchak has even launched an improbable bid for the Russian
presidency.

Investigative reporter Roman Shleynov noted that the Gmail hackers
targeted was the one he used while working on the Panama Papers, the
expose of international tax avoidance that implicated members of
Putin's inner circle.

Fancy Bear also pursued more than 30 media targets in Ukraine,
including many journalists at the Kyiv Post and others who have
reported from the front lines of the Russia-backed war in the
country's east.

Nataliya Gumenyuk, co-founder of Ukrainian internet news site
Hromadske, said the hackers were hunting for compromising information.

"The idea was to discredit the independent Ukrainian voices," she said.

The hackers also tried to break into the personal Gmail account of
Ellen Barry, The New York Times' former Moscow bureau chief.

Her newspaper appears to have been a favorite target. Fancy Bear sent
phishing emails to roughly 50 of Barry's colleagues at The Times in
late 2014, according to two people familiar with the matter. They
spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential data.

The Times confirmed in a brief statement that its employees received
the malicious messages, but the newspaper declined to comment further.

Some journalists saw their presence on the hackers' hit list as
vindication. Among them were CNN security analyst Michael Weiss and
Brookings Institution visiting fellow Jamie Kirchick, who took the
news as a badge of honor.

"I'm very proud to hear that," Kirchick said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said the wide net cast by Fancy
Bear underscores efforts by governments worldwide to use hacking
against journalists.

"It's about gaining access to sources and intimidating those
journalists," said Courtney C. Radsch, the group's advocacy director.

In Russia, the stakes are particularly high. The committee has counted
38 murders of journalists there since 1992.

Many journalists told the AP they knew they were under threat,
explaining that they had added a second layer of password protection
to their emails and only chatted over encrypted messaging apps like
Telegram, WhatsApp or Signal.

Fancy Bear target Ekaterina Vinokurova, who works for regional media
outlet Znak, said she routinely deletes her emails.

"I understand that my accounts may be hacked at any time," she said in
a telephone interview. "I'm ready for them."

___

"I'VE SEEN WHAT THEY COULD DO"

It's not just whom the hackers tried to spy on that points to the
Russian government.

It's when.

Maria Titizian, an Armenian journalist, immediately found significance
in the date she was targeted: June 26, 2015.

"It was Electric Yerevan," she said, referring to protests over rising
energy bills that she reported on. The protests that rocked Armenia's
capital that summer were initially seen by some in Moscow as a threat
to Russian influence.

Titizian said her outspoken criticism of the Kremlin's "colonial
attitude" toward Armenia could have made her a target.

Eliot Higgins, whose open source journalism site Bellingcat repeatedly
crops up on the target list, said the phishing attempts seemed to
begin "once we started really making strong statements about MH17,"
the Malaysian airliner shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine in
2014, killing 298 people. Bellingcat played a key role in marshaling
the evidence that the plane was destroyed by a Russian missile -
Moscow's denials notwithstanding.

The clearest timing for a hacking attempt may have been that of Adrian Chen.

On June 2, 2015, Chen published a prescient expose of the Internet
Research Agency, the Russian "troll factory" that won fresh infamy in
October over revelations that it had manufactured make-believe
Americans to pollute social media with toxic rhetoric.

Eight days after Chen published his big story, Fancy Bear tried to
break into his account.

Chen, who has regularly written about the darker recesses of the
internet, said having a lifetime of private messages exposed to the
internet could be devastating.

"I've covered a lot of these leaks," he said. "I've seen what they could do."

___

Donn reported from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Vasilyeva reported from
Moscow. Kate de Pury in Moscow contributed.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE - Raphael Satter's father, David Satter, is an author
and Russia specialist who has been critical of the Kremlin. His emails
were published last year by hackers and his account is on Secureworks'
list of Fancy Bear targets.

Baltic Legal Updates, Latvia
 Friday


Inese Lībiņa-Egnere to Deputy Speaker of Armenian parliament:
Strengthening parliamentary cooperation important for both countries


Riga: The Supreme Court of the Republic of Latvia has issued the
following media release:

On Friday, 15 December, Inese Lībiņa-Egnere, Deputy Speaker of the
Saeima, met at the Saeima with Eduard Sharamazanov, Deputy Speaker of
the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia. Lībiņa-Egnere noted
that 2017 is a symbolic year in the Latvian-Armenian cooperation as it
marks the 25th anniversary since diplomatic relations were established
between the two countries. “This is a good time to look back on what
has been achieved so far and energise our parliamentary cooperation.
It plays a special role in the context of strengthening political
dialogue and sharing experiences,” Deputy Speaker Lībiņa-Egnere told
her Armenian counterpart.

Andrejs Klementjevs, Secretary of the Saeima, also participated in the
meeting of the two Deputy Speakers.

Lībiņa-Egnere and Sharamazanov discussed the role parliamentary
contacts play in promoting closer cooperation in other areas. The
Deputy Speaker of the Armenian parliament thanked the Latvian
representatives for their efforts in strengthening parliamentary
relations between the two countries and invited them to visit Armenia.

The Latvian side praised the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership
Agreement between the European Union and Armenia, signed on 24
November. Deputy Speaker Sharamazanov emphasised that the Agreement
attests to Armenia’s loyalty to the values of democracy and human
rights, and reflects the institutional reforms carried out so far.

Lībiņa-Egnere and Klementjevs spoke with Sharamazanov about current
domestic events in both countries, as well as developments in the
region. As regards the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Latvian side
emphasised their support for a peaceful resolution of the conflict
based on international law. The Minsk Group is the only format for
seeking a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Latvian side
stated.

Deputy Speaker Sharamazanov is accompanied on his visit by two MP of
the Armenian parliament:  Samvel Farmanyan and Suren Manukyan.

During their visit to the Saeima, the Armenian delegation also met
with Lolita Čigāne, Chair of the European Affairs Committee of the
Saeima, and members of the Committee, as well as Sergejs Potapkins,
Chair of the Saeima Group for Interparliamentary Relations with
Armenia, and the members of the Group.

Regnum news agency, Rusia
Dec 22 2017


Armenian army to use satellite imagery for reconnaissance

[Armenian News note: the below is translated from Russian]

Yerevan, 22 December: The Armenian Armed Forces are expanding their
reconnaissance capabilities, and in the near future they will start
using "images from space" to conduct operational reconnaissance of the
territory of neighbouring states.

To this end, the Armenian government has allocated 300m drams (625,000
dollars) to Geokosmos closed-type joint-stock company [CJSC], which
was set up in November. According to the government's decision [to
start using "images from space" to conduct operational reconnaissance
of the territory of neighbouring states, the money will be used] "to
put into operation and upgrade the software and hardware used by the
receiving station at Geokosmos".

Artsrun Hovhannisyan, the spokesman for the Armenian Defence Ministry,
said that details of the agreement as well as any further information
related to the government's decision, could not be disclosed.

"The decision to cooperate with Geokosmos CJSC will expand Armenia's
reconnaissance capabilities, particularly by means of space
technologies," the spokesman said.

Asked whether the establishment of Geokosmos would pave the way for
the launch of an Armenian satellite into space, Hovhannisyan said: "I
cannot say precisely what is possible, but the Armed Forces must
gradually develop, and they do develop their means of reconnaissance
and all means of ensuring combat capability in general, and they do
take clear steps in that direction, and you can see that. The draft
law is one of those examples."

The April 2016 war in Nagorno-Karabakh showed that the Armenian Armed
Forces did not possess technical means to carry out deep
reconnaissance and detect the wide scale of military operations
prepared by the enemy.

According to some observers, the Armenian Armed Forces will now be
able to obtain information not only from Russian satellites or those
of member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, but
also from satellites that belong to other states.

ENP Newswire
 Friday


-World Bank Group Launches New Advisory Project in Armenia to Support
Women and Help Reduce Poverty



The World Bank Group is launching a new advisory project in Armenia to
support women engaged in the wild harvest sector, to help increase
productivity, reduce poverty, and spur economic growth.



The three-year Armenia Gender project, implemented by IFC-a sister
organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group-will
help women engage in more productive activities in the sector, and
foster their links with buyers and producers. Wild harvesting is
composed almost entirely of women and provides a vital source of
income for many of Armenia's poorest citizens, especially in remote
areas. However, its productivity is hampered by challenges including a
poorly developed value chain, with low turnover and profits.

Lilit Asatryan, Chairwoman of the Armenian Young Women's Association,
said: 'Developing the wild harvesting sector's value chain has real
potential to improve the lives of many in Armenia's remote areas. For
that to happen, the currently disjointed system needs to be improved
and made more efficient, with standardized collecting procedures, and
close links to buyers and markets.'

The project will work with the Armenian Young Women's Association to
improve entrepreneurs' skills and enhance value-chain participation
through business education, mentoring, and networking activities. The
project will also provide advice to the Ministry of Agriculture to
improve the regulatory environment. To ensure the efficient
implementation of regulatory reforms and women's involvement in the
decision-making process, the project will foster coordination among
key stakeholders, including women's business associations, buyers,
industry networks, and the government.

'Women's employment is vital to driving economic development, so
supporting women's participation in the labor market is a 'win-win'
for Armenia,' said Jan van Bilsen, IFC Regional Manager for the South
Caucasus. 'This new project aims to help women employed in this sector
reach new markets, by working with key stakeholders to remove
obstacles and adopting regulations that will help develop the sector.'

The Armenia Gender project is funded by Austria's Federal Ministry of
Finance and the World Bank's multi-donor Umbrella Facility for Gender
Equality.

Armenia became an IFC member in 1995. Since then, IFC has provided
over $ 480 million, including nearly $ 118 million mobilized from
other lenders, to finance 49 projects across a range of sectors,
including financial markets, manufacturing, agribusiness, services,
and mining. In addition, IFC has also supported trade transactions
worth more than $ 130 million through its trade finance program, and
implemented advisory projects focused on private sector development.

About the World Bank Group

The World Bank Group is one of the world's largest sources of funding
and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely
associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association
(IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance
Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency
(MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment
Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the
mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in
the developing world. For more information, please visit
www.worldbank.org, www.miga.org, and www.ifc.org.