Mayors in a number of communities were voted out of office. This was the case in Shnogh, Akori, Dsegh, Teghout, Tchotchkan, Aygehat and Arevatzak
Today, the Security Chief of the Akhtala Enrichment Combine and two other men are reported to have fired gunshots in the direction of the apartment owned by Karen Khachikyan, brother of the Akhtala mayor.
Nikolai Nikulin, a Russian living in Armenia's Lori Marz village of Tzater, has a serious “identity” problem. The man has no identity documents of any kind and thus hasn’t been able to work for the past 22 years.
We got in touch with Mayor Kochinyan for some answers. His reply was short and to the point. “Stay as far away from me as possible and don’t enter this village. You were here on Saturday. You think I don’t know?”
Several community leaders in Lori Marz have sent letters to President Serzh Sargsyan, asking that he pardon Serop Der-Boghossian who was found guilty in 2011 of “having sex with minors against their will” and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
The Akhtala Mountain Enrichment Combine, owned by Metal Prince Ltd., is goimng through a rough patch. Its production of copper ore has dropped by 50-60%. This translates into 500-600 tons of total production.
Papik Aroushanyan has served as the mayor of Metz Ayroum, a village mostly populated by Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan, for the past 15 years. From our brief encounter, I got the clear impression that Mayor Aroushanyan was fed up and tired from the job.
Aida said that the village Mayor Haykaz Kochinyan presented the family with New Year’s gifts in January – one box of coffee and candy and some cigarettes. She says this was the first year that the mayor gave the family any type of help.
Evidently, plant management has failed to inform its employees about the dangers. But none of them were wearing any protective clothes anyway. So what’s the risk of ingesting some toxic beans or corn?
The planned construction of a water pipe in the village of Odzoun in Armenia’s northern Lori Marz might well kill more than 150 pine trees towering alongside a 200 meter stretch of road.
The other day, school Vice Principal Seda Khlopouzyan told Hetq that they had no information when the election would take place. She only said that there had been two applications for the job of principal; that of Kimik Petrosyan and Armen Niazyan.
Readers will remember the Hetq story about a 17 year-old girl who claimed to have been sexually molested on March 19 in the town of Alaverdi.
Hetq tried to talk to Armenian customs officials about the long lines. Despite the fact that the Armenian customs house was open to all RA citizens on May 6, when I visited the border crossing, the door was shut in my face.
It seems that the Rule of Law party, a junior coalition member, had no use for this law. Hetq received word that bribes, in the form of cell phones, were being distributed by the party in the Sarahart neighbourhood in the northern town of Alaverdi at around 7pm.
Vallex Group ChairmanValery Mezhlumyan, in an attempt to calm passions in the village of Teghout over a recent incident in which company security guards beat several village residents, travelled to Teghout and asked for forgiveness.
“I’m voting for Tsarukyan. I find everything he does is top notch. Just look at his face. It’s enough to convince me,” said Alaverdi resident Marousya Sargsyan.
Residents blocked the road in force after an incident took place yesterday in which security staff of the Armenian Copper Programme’s subsidiary Teghout Ltd. had beat up several villagers.
Residents claim that members of the Armenian Copper Programme’s (ACP) security staff were irked when a local drove his car by, stirring up dust.
In a sexual assault case involving a minor that took place on March 19 in the northern Armenian town of Alaverdi, one person has been arrested and another is being sought by law enforcement.
Large diameter pipes laid under the Dzoraged-Marts section of the road, to service a hydro-electric station owned by Vanadzor Mayor Samvel Darbinyan, have led to large cracks in the road surface.
Fire trucks ran out of water after just five minutes. Luckily, fire-fighters from Odzun arrived an hour later and succeeded in preventing the blaze from spreading further.
The brother of Garik Aghjyan, a 22 year-old miner who died on February 25 at the #305 Akhtala Mine, says that no one from the company has yet conveyed condolences to his mother.
Many of the miners I met were ready to enter the mines wearing clothes from home. They hadn't received new work uniforms since early 2010.
The review panel revealed that a mere 40 million AMD of the 7.5 billion AMD in revenues of Metal Price, the company that owns the plant, was reinvested in the operation.
Workers say they’ve cheated out of half their New Year’s vacation pay, that they haven’t been provided with work uniforms, and that they are forced to spend their half hour lunch period squatting in the mud.
The winner of the election, Anahit Mousayelyan, whom the teachers did not recognize as being fairly elected, resigned on February 7, and the Lori Regional Governor appointed an interim principal until a new election could be scheduled.
Rumors had circulated that health problems might lead to some sort of mitigation of the sentence. This wasn’t the case even though Der-Boghossian was transferred to the court from a prison hospital.
The RA Court of Appeals announced that it had found the appeal of convicted pedophile Serop Der-Boghossian baseless and would refuse to hear it.
The internal school squabble in the village of Akori, leading to a walk out of teachers last December, has no end in sight.
Passions are still flaring in the Lori village of Akori over a disputed December 20, 2011 election pitting local residents and teachers against the school board.
One man was shot to death and another wounded today at around 2pm in the center of the northern Armenian town of Alaverdi.
Over the years of Mayor Darbinyan’s tenure, all of the road paving and other capital projects in Vanadzor have been contracted out to Argishti 1, his brother's company.
Pupils gathered around the school entrance told Hetq that they won’t go back to class until Armen Niazyan, a village resident who lost the election, is appointed the school’s principal.
When the election results were announced, school pupils took to the streets with banners in support of the loser Armen Niazyan. The pupils were chanting for Mousayelyan to leave the village.
Kindergarten Director Kamo Gharagozyan says that’s not enough to provide meals to the children. Parents have to pay 3,000 AMD a month on food.
Well into his 80’s, Ladik, as he’s called by residents in his neighbourhood in Alaverdi, is also known to have an irritable temper when crossed.
Over the past few years, MG has carried out exploratory work over 500 hectares of agriculturally zoned land in the area, uncovering rich deposits of gold, copper and molybdenum.
Hetq also spoke to Prosecutor Aram Amirzadyan who stated that the sentence was in line with the offences committed by Der-Boghossian and was a just verdict.
An court in Armenia today sentenced Serop Der-Boghossian to 15 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of having sex with minors against their will; the maximum sentence allowed.
Metal Prince Ltd owner Serop Der-Boghossian, charged with paedophilia, took a turn for the worse during today’s trial.
Azatyan went missing on May 25, 2009 after leaving his house. The case is being investigated by the National Security Service.
The defendant’s lawyers informed the court that they still needed time to prepare their rebuttal statement.
Reporters in the waiting room outside could hear the heated exchanges taking place inside between the defense and prosecution attorneys.
Yesterday, the governor of Lori marz Arthur Nalbandyan held a meeting with 30 village heads from the Tumanyan region and the communities of the city of Alaverdi.
Der-Boghossian says he wasn't sexually molested as a child.
At noon on October 10, the waters of the Debed River in the Akhtala-Ayroum stretch were a greyish tint.
Prosecutor Amirzadyan said that the questioning of Der-Boghossian would probably last 3 hours and this was the reason for the delay.
In the original August 2 Hetq article, we reported that the men cutting down trees failed to provide any identification or papers.
Presently, both the old and new smokestacks are spewing out exhausts. The new smokestack, with improved filters, spews out less.