Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

CENN Daily Digest - December 1, 2004

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • CENN Daily Digest - December 1, 2004

    CENN - DECEMBER 1, 2004 DAILY DIGEST
    Table of Contents:
    1. Con-Tract of the Century
    2. The Summit of the Ministers of Environment of Caspian and Black Sea
    Regional States Commences in Istanbul
    3. Exxon/Mobil Drilling Another Well
    4. WB Finances Reconstruction of Irrigation System in Azerbaijan
    5. No Emergencies Recorded for the Last Day Because of Snowfall in
    Armenia
    6. World Vision Renovates Four Health Posts in Lori Province
    7. An International Workshop on Social Monitoring Opened in Yerevan
    8. RA Parliament Passes the Draft Law on Higher and Post Graduate
    Education
    9. Yerevan Municipality Moves to New Building
    10. Journalists Create "Caucasian Club"
    11. Armenia To Start Building Iran Gas Pipeline
    12. Armenian Rivers are Not As Polluted as Azerbaijan Alleges
    13. African NGOs Boycott World Bank Meeting
    14. 2nd International Congress and Innovation Fair



    1. CON-TRACT OF THE CENTURY
    Michael Gillard, 29 November 2004

    Page: 1/7
    A SpinWatch investigation

    How BP tried to cover-up up its flawed operations in the Caspian that
    could lead to an environmental disaster. The investigation also reveals
    breaking news that the first bank consortium led by Italy's largest
    bank, Banca Intesa, has pulled out over concerns about safety flaws and
    reputation risk.

    The Con-tract of the Century

    A special investigation for Spinwatch by Michael Gillard

    The full text is available on the following address:
    http://www.cenn.org/info/THE CON-TRACT OF THE CENTURY.doc


    2. THE SUMMIT OF THE MINISTERS OF ENVIRONMENT OF CASPIAN AND BLACK SEA
    REGIONAL STATES COMMENCES IN ISTANBUL

    Source: State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, AzerTag,
    November 25, 2004

    The Summit of the Ministers of Environment of the states of the Caspian
    and Black seas region, devoted to questions of ecology,` Caspian and
    Black Sea Ecology 2004' in which delegations from Turkey, Russia, Iran,
    Romania, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan and Georgia take
    part, representatives of the international and regional oil-and-gas,
    transport and tanker companies, a number NGOs, has started in Istanbul.

    The employee of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources Rasim
    Sattarzade represents Azerbaijan at the Summit.

    As was informed to AzerTAj in the Ministry of Ecology and Natural
    Resources, participants of Summit with a view of development of regional
    interstate and industrial cooperation on preservation of the environment
    will consider a number of questions influencing on ecological system of
    region. Besides, during the meeting, discussed are expected questions of
    development of ecologically safe methods and technologies of
    investigation and oil recovery and gas and transportation of power
    resources in the Caspian-Black Sea region.

    According to Turkish mass media, one of the basic questions of the
    Summit is discussion of the program of navigation in the Bosporus and
    Dardanelle passages, carried out now by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
    and the ministry of environment and forestry of Turkey. The program
    stipulates monitoring the problem of transport congestion, caused by
    passage of tankers through the Bosporus and Dardanelle, and also
    research of alternatives to working rules of transit of passages.


    3. EXXON/MOBIL DRILLING ANOTHER WELL

    Source: State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, AzerTag,
    November 29, 2004

    After drilling an exploratory hole in the Zafar-Mashal field,
    Exxon/Mobile Company is going to start drilling the first test hole in
    the Nakhchivan structure. The cost of drilling works in the Zafar-Mashal
    field were the highest in the Caspian Sea. It cost $150 million.

    To remind, the Company holds 8 percent stock at the ACG full-fledge
    development project.


    4. WB FINANCES RECONSTRUCTION OF IRRIGATION SYSTEM IN AZERBAIJAN

    Source: State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan, AzerTag,
    November 29, 2004

    World Bank finances $42-million `Rehabilitation & Completion of
    Irrigation and Drainage Infrastructure' project in Azerbaijan.

    The project aims at prevention the decline in supplying water in Baku
    City, eliminate further deterioration of the supply of irrigation water
    to approximately 86,000 hectares along the Samur-Apsheron Canal; and
    improve drainage and reduce water logging and salinity on approximately
    36,500 ha along Main-Mugan Collector.

    The project is implemented by the Melioration and Water Industry Agency
    of the Agriculture Ministry of Azerbaijan.


    5. NO EMERGENCIES RECORDED FOR THE LAST DAY BECAUSE OF SNOWFALL IN
    ARMENIA

    Source: ARKA, November 24, 2004

    No emergencies were recorded for the last day because of snowfall in
    Armenia, as Colonel Nikolay Grigoryan Head of Armenian Department of
    Emergency Situations stated. In his words all roads are in working
    conditions except the Selim pass and Bagratashen bridge. He mentioned
    that due to icy roads a car accident was recorded in Vayots Dzor without
    human casualties. There were breakdowns on electric lines in Aragatsotn
    marz, while they were removed and the electricity was restored.


    6. WORLD VISION RENOVATES FOUR HEALTH POSTS IN LORI PROVINCE

    Source: ArmenPress, November 25, 2004

    On Wednesday, November 24, World Vision Armenia celebrated the opening
    of the renovated health posts in four rural communities in Lori Marz.
    The ceremony took place at 12:00 PM at the health post in Norashen
    village and was followed by a visit to Sarchapet, Artsni and Saratovka
    communities where World Vision and Support to Communities (STC) has
    completed the renovation of the local health posts.

    Renovation of the health posts was done in the framework of the Support
    to Mobile Medical Teams program, a five-year project funded by US Agency
    for International Development and World Vision and targeting 57 rural
    communities in Gegharkunik, Lori Tavush and Syunik marzes.

    The program aims to provide medical services to the population of remote
    communities (serving 32,000 people), increase access of vulnerable
    children and their families to a healthy and balanced diet, conduct
    health education and promotion among population, establish revolving
    drug funds, conduct primary health care trainings and work closely with
    policlinics, hospitals and health posts to increase levels of care.
    World Vision Armenia works closely with its local partners including STC
    and the Scientific Association of Medical Students of Armenia.

    Since May 2004 over 12,600 people in 25 villages of Lori and Gegharkunik
    regions have benefited from this program. Four Mobile Medical Teams
    regularly visited remote communities, providing qualified health care
    services to the residents.

    As a part of the program activities focused on strengthening
    community-based health structures in villages, World Vision Armenia
    together with STC started the renovation of the health posts in 11
    villages of Gegharkunik and 5 villages of Lori from which renovation of
    four Lori health posts has been completed.

    Next year the program will start to deliver primary health care to
    vulnerable children and families in Syunik and Tavush regions.

    "By the end of the program, villages will have benefited from five
    years of MMT visits, and will also have primary health care structures
    and community knowledge strengthened in a sustainable manner." says
    Julian Srodecki, WV Armenia Operations Director.


    7. AN INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON SOCIAL MONITORING OPENED IN YEREVAN

    Source: ARKA, November 24, 2004

    Today, at the Yerevan Marriott Hotel, the Government of Armenia and
    United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) opened a three-day
    international workshop on Strengthening the Capacity for Social
    Monitoring in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): Millennium
    Development Goals (MDG) and Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSP).
    Senior representatives of the Government of Armenia, UN Agencies and
    offices in Slovakia, the United States of America, and Switzerland,
    international and local organisations, Governors' Offices, as well as
    distinguished experts from Poland, Tanzania, Albania, Kazakhstan, and
    other countries are participating in the workshop.

    The main objective of the regional workshop is to share experiences on
    social monitoring and identify the steps that are needed to establish
    comprehensive national social monitoring systems. The workshop also aims
    at strengthening the capacity of participants by: a) exchanging
    experiences and discussing case studies in the field of social
    monitoring, with a special focus on methodologies and indicators; b)
    reviewing linkages between MDGs and PRSPs in the CIS; and c) discussing
    mechanisms for building partnerships in social monitoring. UNDP office
    to Armenia was founded to 1993. Total cost of UNDP programs in Armenia
    makes $11 million.


    8. RA PARLIAMENT PASSES THE DRAFT LAW ON HIGHER AND POST-GRADUATE
    EDUCATION

    Source: ARKA, November 25, 2004

    The RA Parliament passed in the first reading the draft law On Higher
    and Post-Graduate Professional Education. The law is called to regulate
    the state policy in these areas, as well as the organizational-legal and
    financial-economic issues. The law includes the protection of citizens'
    right to obtain corresponding education, its availability, continuous
    education, ensuring of competitiveness, transparency and publicity, as
    well as recognition of diploma and qualification degrees of Armenian
    higher and post-graduate education in European countries.

    The draft law also sets the state standards and educational programs of
    higher and post-graduate education, terms and forms of education,
    qualification degrees, as well as the order of entering a higher
    education and post-graduate institutions, as well as the order of their
    registration and management.

    The draft law provide for two-degree system of higher education
    (Baccalaureate and Magistrate). Every higher educational institution
    (public or private) will grant its own diploma. In addition, the best
    students and needy students will be able to receive student
    scholarships.


    9. YEREVAN MUNICIPALITY MOVES TO NEW BUILDING

    Source: ArmenPress, November 26, 2004

    Armenian president Robert Kocharian praised today the companies that
    have built the new building of the Yerevan municipality, saying after a
    stroll that he was satisfied with both the quality of the work and the
    speed with which it was accomplished.

    Speaking to reporters, Kocharian said the municipality staff should work
    now more effectively to tackle the citizens' problems without red tape
    and delays. "The idea of one window should be implemented in the
    municipality that has to ensure uninterrupted function of all city
    services," the president said, adding that complains that the
    municipality does not have good conditions for work will be unjustified.

    The construction of the building was started yet in 1980 but was
    suspended after 1991 and resumed only in 2003. The new municipality
    building will also house the Yerevan History Museum.

    The new five-storey building has a total of 13,500 square meters of
    space. It cost is 3.1 billion drams.


    10. JOURNALISTS CREATE "CAUCASIAN CLUB"

    Source: ITAR-TASS News Agency, November 26, 2004

    A new public organization of journalists - the Caucasian Club, has been
    established on Friday under the auspices of the International Federation
    of journalist unions and the Union of Russia journalists. The goal of
    the new organization is to make a positive contribution to the coverage
    of international problems and in the long run to the stabilization of
    the situation in the Caucasus.

    Journalists from Moscow, Chechnya, Dagestan, North Ossetia, the
    Krasnodar territory, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia were among the first
    to join the Caucasian Club, which is open to new members to join.

    The main credo of the new Club is strict objectivity, impartial coverage
    and delicacy when covering ethnic problems, Besides. The Caucasian Club
    will discuss economic and social problems of the Caucasus, integration
    of national Diasporas, problems of ethnic crime.


    11. ARMENIA TO START BUILDING IRAN GAS PIPELINE

    By Hrach Melkumian

    Armenia will start on Tuesday the long-awaited work on a key section of
    a strategic pipeline that will allow it to import Iranian natural gas in
    two years from now, officials said on Monday.

    Prime Minister Andranik Markarian, Energy Minister Armen Movsisian and
    his Iranian counterpart will lead an official ceremony in Agarak, a
    small town near the Iranian border, dedicated to the event. The
    construction of the pipeline's 100-kilometer stretch passing through
    Iranian territory reportedly got underway last year.

    `We are talking about the construction of the first 40-kilometer section
    of the pipeline which, as you know, will be built with a $30 million
    loan provided by the Iranian side,' Lusine Harutiunian, the spokeswoman
    for the Armenian Energy Ministry, told RFE/RL. `We plan to complete the
    construction by January 1, 2007.'

    The loan was formally extended during Iranian President
    MohammadKhatami's September visit to Armenia when the two neighboring
    states signed a final agreement on the project after a decade of
    negotiations. The deal was finalized during Iranian Oil and Gas Minister
    Bizhan Zangane's talks in Yerevan last May.

    The Armenian government says the pipeline will bolster Armenia's vital
    relationship with the Islamic Republic and provide it with an
    alternative source of natural gas which generates about 40 percent of
    its energy. The economically struggling country presently imports the
    fuel from Russia through an aging pipeline running across Georgia.

    The 42-kilometer section of the new pipeline will run from the Iranian
    border to the southeastern town of Kajaran through one of Armenia's most
    rocky terrains. A mountain pass near Kajaran is the highest in the
    country.

    Armenia is due to repay the Iranian loan with energy supplies. The two
    governments already engage in a seasonal swap of electricity and plan to
    boost it dramatically with a second high-voltage transmission line
    linking their power grids. Harutiunian said Armenian and Iranian
    officials will inaugurate the line at a separate ceremony on Tuesday.


    12. ARMENIAN RIVERS ARE NOT AS POLLUTED AS AZERBAIJAN ALLEGES

    Source: ArmenPress, November 29, 2004

    Armen Saghatelian, the head of a center for ecological and noospheric
    studies, an affiliation of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, denied
    Azerbaijan's allegations that rivers flowing in from Armenia are
    polluted heavily with radioactive substances.

    The center will accomplish next December a project for monitoring of the
    South Caucasian rivers, assisted by NATO and OSCE Yerevan office.
    Saghatelian said samples of water from 13 rivers running across Armenia
    to Azerbaijan are taken once a month to check the volume of their
    contamination. Similar work is done in Azerbaijan and Georgia and the
    data is collected in one center.

    He said NATO provides funds for purchase of necessary equipment while
    the OSCE office helps to carry out field work.

    He said NATO helps also to buy scale spectrometers to decide the volume
    of radioactive substances in the rivers, which he said is important to
    deny Azerbaijan's accusations that Armenia pollutes the rivers with such
    elements. The project has been carried out in the South Caucasian
    republics since 2003 and its overall budget is 500,000 euros.


    13. AFRICAN NGOS BOYCOTT WORLD BANK MEETING

    PRESS RELEASE November 30, 2004

    Source: [email protected], November 24,
    2004

    ACCRA, November 30, 2004 - Today, organisations from across the African
    continent are boycotting a consultation meeting in Nairobi organized by
    the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group. The
    organisations claim that the consultation is ill prepared, rushed and
    untransparent, and will not provide a meaningful venue for input. Civil
    society demanded more time, more outreach, more translation, more
    information and more engagement, but did not get an adequate response.

    The IFC is meeting in Nairobi today to discuss new social and
    environmental standards. The institution is the private sector arm of
    the World Bank Group, providing financial support for large
    corporations, including AngloGold Ashanti in Ghana. Many of IFC's
    projects around the world have polluted rivers, displaced people,
    increased corruption, abused human rights and contributed to climate
    change. Benefits are rarely shared with the communities that are
    affected.

    African NGOs including Friends of the Earth, Third World Network and
    CIVICUS claim in a statement that `the framework for the Bank's
    involvement in Africa's extractives has been inadequate and unbalanced
    to meet the developmental priorities and needs of the people and
    communities.'

    Under pressure of transnational corporations, the IFC plans to weaken
    its standards, thereby endangering people and the environment even
    further. Noble Wadzah of Friends of the Earth Ghana said: `IFC's new
    standards for social and environmental matters will not be binding upon
    corporations. While the current policies are weak already, and
    implementation is problematic, voluntary codes are unacceptable. It
    would imply that foreign corporations can ruin our resources and
    livelihoods as they please, while not being accountable. What do we
    stand to gain? It is time that the World Bank Group reconsiders the way
    it is doing business and starts to protect people instead of profit.'

    The African statement follows boycotts of consultations of the IFC
    review in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Manila (Philippines) and London
    (United Kingdom). Later this week, groups will be protesting outside the
    IFC consultation meeting in Paris, France.

    For more information, contact:
    Noble Wadzah, Friends of the Earth Ghana: 0233 51 23 12
    Abdulai Darimani, Third World Network: 0233 50 36 69

    Position Statement of African Civil Society Organisations for the IFC
    Safeguard Policy
    Review Consultation in Africa, November 29-30, 2004 is available on the
    following address: http://www.cenn.org/info/Position Statement of
    African Civil Society Organisations for the IFC Safeguard Policy.doc

    ===============================Tired of big money paving the planet?
    Become an Active Bankwatcher!
    active.bankwatch.org

    Petr Hlobil
    ATTENTION: NEW ADDRESS

    Petr Hlobil
    Campaigns Coordinator
    CEE Bankwatch Network
    Jicinska 8, Praha 3, 130 00, Czech Republic
    Tel.+fax: 420-2-7481 65 71 l. 18
    http://www.bankwatch.org


    14. 2ND INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS AND INNOVATION FAIR

    "SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT IN ACTION"
    19th - 20th September 2005, University of Geneva

    For the more detailed information please visit: http://www.smia.info/


    --
    *******************************************
    CENN INFO
    Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN)

    Tel: ++995 32 92 39 46
    Fax: ++995 32 92 39 47
    E-mail: [email protected]
    URL: www.cenn.org
Working...
X