The Caucasus: press review (April 1-7)

Author: VK

In October, Azerbaijan's presidential elections will be held, and although, officially, the campaign has not started yet, the opposition camp is much talking about the possibility of merging to promote a single candidate for the presidency. L"Ayna" quoted the chairman of the opposition "Musavat" party Isa Gambar, who recently said at a meeting with young people that he was skeptical of that. Referring to joint efforts, the opposition leader assured that his party is in favor of the unity of the opposition forces; however, he expressed doubt that the parties that called for this, in fact, had another objective. According to Gambar, some of these parties are controlled by the current government, while others are under the control of Russia, and the third – of Iran. He also lamented the fact that 8 out of 10 speeches by leaders of these parties include attack on the "Musavat” party. "Look at that - Gambar said. – For the last two years, have they taken any steps, had any meetings, promoted any serious initiatives? How can there be unity with these parties? What will it give people? " But he added a caveat, saying that it certainly did not apply to all parties.

As for the issue of nominating a single candidate from the opposition, Gambar said that on the eve of the presidential election in 2003, he came up with such an initiative, met with representatives of the various parties, but no one supported him, so he is not going to lose his time this year.



These statements by Gambar caused considerable resonance among the political elite of the country. Thus, the newspaper "Yeni Musavat" quotes comments by chairman of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan Sardar Jalaloglu, who believes that the statement of the leader of Musavat casts a shadow on all political parties. "If he has any serious facts and ignores them, it is a criminal offense. He should specifically name the parties that are controlled by external forces. But if he has no evidence, and it is just a PR campaign, it is very dangerous and unpleasant”, the newspaper quotes the words by Jalaloglu.

Civic Party Chairman Ali Aliyev made a statement in about the same way. He believes that Gambar took wrong position and tries to denigrate others. In his opinion, after such statements the press has to make him prove his words.



Commenting on the opposition leader’s words, a correspondent of the Azerbaijani "Xalq Gazeti" in the article "The Azerbaijani opposition denies lack of a social base and dependence on outside forces," notes that Gambar, speaking of funding opposition parties from abroad, actually announced what has long been written by pro-government media. "However, - the author continues, - trying to justify their failures in the past 20 years, the opposition claims that it receives no help from outside." The author believes that the weakness of opposition is due to a real absense of a revolutionary situation in the country, because the vast majority of the population supports the policy of the ruling powers.







***



Armenian newspaper "Business Express" in article entitled "National important task" writes about the press conference of the expert committee of the Academy of Sciences and the Commission on Sevan under Armenian President Vladimir Movsisyan. The scientist said that in 1933 (before the use of the resource), the water reserves in the lake were 58 billion cubic meters. During the years of the uncontrolled use of water resources of the lake (from 1933 to 2002), mainly for power generation and irrigation needs, the level of Lake Sevan dropped by 19.3 meters, and water reserves decreased to 33 billion cubic meters, and this brought a wealth of environmental problems, which have led to the fact that the process of waterlogging began in the lake. The article says that in 2001 a law "On Lake Sevan" was passed and a program of activities aimed at the rehabilitation, conservation and utilization of water resources of the lake from 2002 to 2030 was adopted. The documents provided in 2030 raising the level of Lake Sevan by 6 meters, so that Armenia would have a strategic reserve of fresh water 8 billion cubic meters more than the volume in 2002. It will be placed in natural conditions in the bowl of the lake, in the territories above 1,900 m, where the water can be transferred to any water user of the country, up to export to the neighboring countries by waterways.

According to Movsisyan, currently, the works to save Lake are in three directions - the rise of the water level, ensuring its cleanness and restoration of biological diversity. For 11 years after the decision, the lake level rose by 3.78 meters instead of the planned 2.38. This was achieved by increasing the flow of water into the lake and reducing costs for irrigation and other needs. However, over the last year there was a decrease of water level in Lake Sevan by 3 cm. The reason was exceeding the statutory rate of release of water, which in turn was due to the difficult situation in the Ararat valley due to violations by the Ministry of Nature Protection of the balance of groundwater use.

To ensure the purity of water in the future, Movsisyan outlined the importance of work to prepare the coastline to the flooding and described the difficulties encountered here. In particular, when the water reaches the mark of 1903.5 meters above sea level, the water can cover 4717 buildings, which would create serious problems in the future. Today, 451 buildings have been dismantled, another 177 buildings have to be removed before the end of 2013. In addition to buildings and structures, communication and engineering structures - roads, power lines, pumping stations, gas and water are also moved away, and 1113 acres of coastal areas care free of vegetation.

Speaking of improving water quality of the lake, the scientist noted with satisfaction that, thanks to the work done last summer, clear water reached 11 meters (compared to 1933, the figure was 11.9 meters, and in 1984 it fell to 4.5 meters). However, the problem of polluted rivers, which flow into Lake Sevan and are in need of cleaning, remains. This, according to Movsisyan, is one of the reasons for the low level of natural reproduction in the reservoir of valuable species such as whitefish and trout. He also said that his expert committee suggested the government that it should ban during the spawning season (April to June), the work of eight small hydropower plants located on rivers flowing into Lake Sevan, or oblige station owners to install fish ladder. In addition, the scientist considers it necessary to organize the import of fry from other regions, as well as to strengthen the fight against poachers.



***



According to the newspaper "Dagestanskaya Pravsa" in the ranking of the quality of life by RIA Novosti in 2012 for the social infrastructure Dagestan ranks 80 among the 82 regions of the country. In the article "Federal obstetrical centers are the attribute of rural life" refers to the construction of new FOCs in the villages of the republic. The publication notes with regret that, under the same rating, 65% of health facilities are located in unsafe buildings. Mismatching sanitary requirements causes sufficiently large number of local hospitals, clinics, medical stations without a license for medical practice. Among them are medical facilities located in settlements in the mountains and remote grasslands. But this year, thanks to the federal target program "Social development of the village up to 2013", the situation in this area should be somewhat improved. Under this program, for the construction of 16 new FOCs in 2012 more than 40 million rubles were provided from the federal budget and about 21 million - from the budget of the republic.

Of course, when many buildings of medical institutions in Dagestan are in disrepair, the work carried out on the construction of new FOCs looks like a drop in the ocean, but as the author writes, we hope that this event will gain scale, and rural residents will get decent conditions for treatment.



***



The press of Ingushetia informs its readers about the opening of the first ski trails in the "Armkhi" resort under construction in the republic According to the newspaper "Serdalo" in an article entitled, "All this is so cool!", according to Jeirakh area residents in which the track was built, its opening is a major step in improving the socio-economic base of the mountain Ingushetia.

The newspaper "Ingushetia" in the article "Ingushetia joined the travel tomorrow" quotes Akhmed Palankoev, representative of Acropolis Group, investor of the facilities, who said that this is only the first step. According to him, in addition, there will be hotel with 40 seats, three swimming pools, a restaurant, a rental shop, sauna. In the coming months the possibility of building other ski slopes and several lifts will be investigated. Total investment will amount to about 200 million rubles. The quality of the new road was commented by President of Alpine skiing and snowboarding Federation of Ingushetia Khalid Tankiyev. According to him, it was possible to conduct a test descent. The track is decent, even skiers can accelerate upto 100 km per hour and above. At the same time, there are facilities for the training process. As for the cable car, it is of the European quality. "We have an agreement with the Russian Ski Federation to assist in teaching our guys, organizing tours outside the republic and workshops," Tankiyev said.