General Armenian News

28 TURKS, 2 ARMENIANS IN BILLIONAIRES LIST OF FORBES
news.az
March 11 2010
Azerbaijan

Forbes logo Forbes said this economic situation raised the number of
Turkish billionaires in the list.

Forbes magazine's annual list of billionaires has been published and
for the first time in 16 years, a person from outside the US leads
the rankings: Mexico's Carlos Slim Helú beat Bill Gates and Warren
Buffett for the top spot.

Armenian-American tycoon Kirk Kerkorian ranked 307th, dropping from
last year's 209th place, with a net worth of $3.1 billion (as compared
to $5 bn last year). The other Armenian billionaire on Forbes' list
is self-made Russian businessman Danil Khachaturov (at number 828),
who has a net worth of $1.2 billion, up $0.8 billion from last year.

Twenty-eight Turks took place in the 2010 billionaires list of US
financial magazine Forbes.

Luisa Kroll, one of the editors of the magazine, said Turkish lira
(TL) gained value against the USD made more Turks be included in the
billionaires list.

Husnu Ozyegin, the owner of the FIBA Holding, is the richest Turkish
person with 3 billion USD of wealth, according to the list.

Ozyegin was ranked the 316th in the list, and Mehmet Emin Karamehmet,
the owner of Cukurova Holding, was at the 342nd place with 2.9 billion
USD of wealth.

Yerevan Metro Set For Modernization
10.03.2010
Hovannes Shoghikian

The Armenian government received on Wednesday 15 million euros ($20.3
million) in external financial assistance designed to modernize
Yerevan's disused underground metro system.

Finance Minister Tigran Davtian signed a relevant agreement with the
head of the Yerevan office of the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD). The London-based institution will finance
one-third of the project.

Under the agreement, another 5 million-euro loan, repayable in 15
years, will be provided by the European Investment Bank. The European
Union will allocate the remaining 5 million euros in the form of a
grant. The government formally pledged to guarantee the repayment of
those loans last August.

Officials said on Wednesday the money will be used for badly needed
capital investments in the subway network built almost 30 years
ago. In particular, the Yerevan metro plans to partly replace its
aging fleet of rail cars, install new water removal pumps and upgrade
its electricity supply systems. Use of electricity by the network is
due to shrink by half as a result.

The metro, which has only one line consisting of ten stations,
received 1.7 billion drams ($4.4 million) in government funding for
capital repairs in 2008 and is expected to remain heavily dependent on
state subsidies in the foreseeable future. Its limited reach has
always put it in a disadvantaged position vis-à-vis other public
transportation means, notably privately owned minibuses. Only an
estimated 60,000 Yerevan residents presently use it on a daily basis.

Yerevan's existing architectural master plan calls for the
construction of four new metro stations by 2020, which officials say
would cost some $160 million. The metro's chief executive, Paylak
Yayloyan, told RFE/RL that the government is negotiating with the
Asian Development Bank to secure funding for one of those stations.

THERE ARE BOOKS AND NO LIBRARIES
Aysor
March 10 2010
Armenia

In many communities of villages there is a serious problem with
the libraries as the governors trying not to make their financial
situation worse simply close the regional libraries or put them with
the school libraries.

As a result the students of the villages as well as the school children
who have a wish to read books are urged to face the non existence of
the libraries.

Within the last few years the Union of the Writers of Armenia presents
books to different regions of Armenia. The Armenian National Library
too presents books to other libraries.

"The regional libraries are left for the regions and the whole
paradox is that the ministry cannot interfere", - the head of the
public relations department of the Armenian Culture Ministry, Gayane
Durgaryan said in the interview with Aysor.am.

According to G. Durgaryan they are working with the administrations,
in order to make them work with the heads of the regions, for the
latter to realize that closing libraries is not permitted.

"The Ministry of Culture as a body preventing the closing and selling
of the libraries has no rights", - mentioned Gayane Durgaryan and
added that it was by the decision of the Government that the regional
libraries passed to the regions and by the decision of the Government
that question should be solved.

ARMENIAN POLICE WON'T BE TAKING IT EASY ON FEMALE

DRIVERS JUST BECAUSE IT'S WOMEN'S MONTH
Tert.am
14:30 ~U 11.03.10

Road police in Armenia won't be going easy on female drivers just
cause it's International Women's Day (celebrated from March 8 to
April 7), said RA road police chief Margar Ohanyan during a press
conference today.

"Female drivers today violate the law the least and are more
conscientious. Aside from that, road police are quite gentle and
respectful with them. We don't have one female driver who doesn't
wear a seatbelt," he said.

RFE/RL Report
Armenia's Rights Records Again Criticized By U.S.
United States-- State Department's annual human rights survey
published.
12.03.2010
Emil Danielyan, Karine Kalantarian, Anush Martirosian

The United States has again criticized the Armenian authorities' human
rights record, saying that they have continued to stifle dissent,
manipulate elections, tolerate police brutality and restrict judicial
independence over the past year.

`Authorities restricted the right of citizens to freely change their
government in [the May 2009] mayoral elections in Yerevan,' the
U.S. State Department said late Thursday in an annual report
scrutinizing human rights practices around the world.

`During the year authorities subjected citizens, particularly those
considered by the government to be political opponents, to arbitrary
arrest, detention, and imprisonment for their political activities;
lengthy pretrial detention also continued to be a problem,' concludes
the report.

`Authorities continued to use harassment and intrusive application of
bureaucratic measures to intimidate and retaliate against political
opponents. Authorities used force to disperse political demonstrations
and constrain citizens seeking to publicize them. Police beat pretrial
detainees and failed to provide due process in some cases.'

Ill-treatment of criminal suspects in police custody has long been
regarded as the most frequent form of human rights violation in
Armenia. According to the State Department, the illegal practice has
continued unabated, with the Armenian police and other security bodies
`regularly' beating and bullying detainees to extract false
confessions.

`Witnesses continued to report that police beat citizens during arrest
and interrogation while in detention,' says its report. `Human rights
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) reported similar allegations;
however, most cases of police mistreatment continued to go unreported
because of fear of retribution.'

The extensive report also says `numerous' Armenians claimed to have
been mistreated by security offices to falsely incriminate dozens of
opposition members arrested following the February 2008 presidential
election and the ensuing street violence in Yerevan. `Most or all of
these arrests appeared politically influenced to varying degrees,' it
says.

As a rule, Armenian courts dismiss torture claims made during the
opposition-related and other trials. The State Department's Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, which compiled the report, appeared
to attribute this to the broader lack of judicial independence in the
country. Armenian courts, it said, `remained regularly subject to
political pressure from the executive branch.'

`The [Armenian] law provides for the presumption of innocence; in
practice, however, this right was frequently violated,' says its
report. `According to court statistics, the courts rendered only seven
acquittals out of a total of 2,407 verdicts handed down during the
year, for an acquittal rate of approximately 0.3 percent.'

The Armenian judiciary was also criticized this week by the main
democracy watchdog of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe. In a long-awaited report, the OSCE's Office of Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) concluded that at least some of
the trials of the arrested oppositionists were not fair because of a
pro-government bias shown by judges.

The Armenian government and judicial authorities have yet to react to
the criticism. The main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) on
Friday portrayed the ODIHR report as further proof of its view that
`justice was not applied' to the jailed oppositionists.

Levon Zurabian, a leader of the opposition alliance, at the same time
criticized the Warsaw-based watchdog for making no `political
evaluation' of the controversial trials. He also stood by his claims
that the OSCE deliberately delayed the publication of the report to
avoid undercutting President Serzh Sarkisian.

The State Department noted that approximately 13 individuals jailed in
connection with the 2008 vote and post-election unrest remained
incarcerated as of the end of 2009. It charged that Armenian
law-enforcement bodies continued to `arbitrarily detain individuals
due to their opposition political affiliations or political
activities' and restrict freedom of assembly. `Police regularly used
force to break up the daily gatherings of supporters of opposition
leader Levon Ter-Petrosian in downtown Yerevan,' argued the
department.

The report goes on to describe the disputed municipal elections in
Yerevan as `significantly flawed.' The State Department used the same
phrase to assess the authorities' conduct of the last presidential
ballot.

The department further deplored a lack of `media pluralism' in Armenia
and `multiple attacks against journalists' reported last
year. `Corruption remained widespread, and authorities did not make
determined efforts to combat it,' it added.

The report prompted diametrically opposite comments from Armenia's
leading pro-government and opposition parties. Galust Sahakian, the
parliamentary leader of President Sarkisian's Republican Party of
Armenia (HHK), said his assessment of its findings is `very negative.'

`It does not correspond to reality,' Sahakian told RFE/RL's Armenian
service. `It's a biased report which I think not only fails to help
Armenia's public and authorities but may also have bad consequences.'

But Armen Martirosian, a leader of the opposition Zharangutyun party,
strongly disagreed. `The facts contained in the report are absolutely
true,' he said. `I'm saying this ... as a person who has felt all
these problems this on his skin.'