The Armenian Observer blog news

Starting from today the Armenian Observer blog will be available on http://ditord.com domain along with its old http://ditord.wordpress.com address. This has been done purely for your convenience so it will be easier to type the address of this blog. Meanwhile, I’m also looking for other authors/contributors to this blog, so if you are interested, please leave a comment to this entry.

I will be travelling intensively from September 1st to 15th, so for that period the blog will be updated less frequently. However, I’ll try to make sure, that no major development is left without our attention.

Meanwhile, this is a good occasion to remind you, that I also run a number of other blogs: The Armenian Citizen blog, Angry Root’s LJ and Munetik - the Armenian version of the Observer blog.

Government bill threatens Lake Sevan

On August 21, 2008 the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia adopted a government bill giving green light to increased water release from Lake Sevan. According to the original law 240 million cubic meters of water should have been taken from the lake to be used for electricity generating via Hrazdan Cascade and irrigation puposes. The new bill will allow the release of 360 million cubic meters of water.

The authorities are explaining the need for increased water outflow from Sevan with the short summer drought and low water availability in artificial water resrvoirs used for irrigation purposes. This is the first such increase for the past 8 years, since a law on the lake's protection was adopted in 2001. Meanwhile environmentalists are protesting the measure and claiming, that "the government simply wants to salvage expensive houses and resorts located along Sevan’s coastline. Those properties have been at growing risk of being submerged by Sevan’s rising waters" as RFE/RL reports.

Before the heated debates in the parliament yesterday, the authorities had been preparing public opinion in favour of water release from the lake in the course of the past two-three weeks by showing news reports and footage of drained artificial reservoirs and dry gardens of Ararat valley. No news reports ever indicated the existence of concerns among environmental protection groups or independent scientists. Moreover, there were several rainfalls throughout the country within the past two weeks, which would seem to have alleviated the problem of water shortage, especially as most of the farmers have gathered the harvest by now and shouldn't need as much water (as I have a small garden in the south of Yerevan, I know first-hand what I'm talking about here).

The Sevan Defense Initiative have disseminated a call to protest the government bill. "According to the opinion of independent scientists duplication of the
volume of released water from Lake Sevan is impermissible and dangerous
for the lake. Climate conditions during 2008 have not been as
unfavorable as to generate a need for a measure. While, the declared
increase of demand for irrigation water is not justified adequately" the call states.

Two Polish journalists denied entry to Armenia in past six days

Reporters Without Borders has circulated a press release, calling on Armenia to lift bans on two Polish journalists who, according to the media watchdog, have been denied entry into the country in the past six days. The press release reported the case of Wojciech Jagielski, a well-known foreign correspondent working for the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, on 14 August. The journalist was turned back at the land border between Armenia and Georgia, where he had been covering the war. He had planned to drive from Tbilisi to the Armenian capital of Yerevan in order to get a flight to Warsaw from there. He was forced to return by road to Tbilisi. Jagielski was told by the immigration official, that he was on a list of journalists banned throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States.

A similar problem happened with Reporter Marcin Manon of TVP, the Polish public TV station, who was turned back on arriving in Yerevan on 12 August on a flight from Warsaw which the Polish government had chartered to evacuate its citizens from Georgia. He had hoped to continue to Georgia but immigration officials told him he was persona non grata in Armenia and had to return to Warsaw. Gazeta Wyborcza told Reporters Without Borders it believes there is a list of undesirable journalists that is used by all the countries that are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile the Armenian authorities were quick to deny such charges. According to RFE/RL the immigration authorities in Yerevan denied reports that two Polish journalists covering the war in neighboring Georgia have been barred from entering Armenia because of being allegedly blacklisted by Russia.

Looks like we have the word of the Reporters Without Borders,Gazeta Wyborcza and two Polish journalists against the word of the Armenian authorities. I’ve decided who to trust. Have you?

Western media at their best.

The journalist's question about Georgia gets censored on CBS. A reporter makes a comparison between the US reaction to 911 and Russia's reaction to Georgian attacks and the satellite feed drops off in the middle of his question. TV is censored every day and every hour but sometimes the censorship is plain to see.This time it was on CBC in Canada.

FOX news cuts Ossetian girl blaming Georgia’s President for war

30 seconds - that’s how much time FOX news, the Bush propaganda machine is prepared to allocate to alternative views on Georgia-Russia war.

In this video posted on you tube, as soon as the girl and her aunt start saying that Georgia was responsible for the attack on their town, the Fox News presenter cuts her off with a bogus claim that they are about to go to commercial break, even though they just returned from one less than 2 minutes before. When they return, he gives them only 10 seconds to speak and then adds “Well, that’s certainly what Russia wants you to think” before cutting their mics.