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Nearly $110,000,000 unprecedentedly massive housing project under development in Yerevan

April 7, 2018 By administrator

Yerevan massive housing project

YEREVAN, APRIL 7, ARMENPRESS. The Revival youth housing complex, which is under development in the area adjacent to Monte Melkonyan Street in Yerevan, aspires to become a public housing project of unprecedented massive social significance in the history of independent Armenia.

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan was briefed on the project – the housing complex project which will include 1080 apartments.

Arsen Karamyan, deputy minister of sports and youth affairs, told reporters that this project is one of the components of the action plan of the 2040 demographic security as outlined by the President.

“In the area adjacent to the street bearing the name of a national hero, not far away from Tsitsernakaberd [genocide memorial], a housing project will be built where young families will live, where the cries of babies will be heard. This is what Revival is,” Karamyan said.

Karamyan also serves as president of the YSU Graduates Union NGO.

The deputy minister says the project will be a significant event for a small country like Armenia.

“Construction of this scale in Yerevan wasn’t even carried out during Soviet times”, he said.

Construction will kick off May 2018 and is expected to be completed in September of 2021.

The total land area comprises 6,57 hectares. Prices for one square meter of the apartments will range from roughly 560$ to 616$ – depending on partial or full renovation.

Six 14-storey dual-entrance and four 14-storey single-entrance apartment buildings will be constructed.

A 23-storey “Revival” complex will also be built, featuring a cinema hall, trading facilities on 8 floors. The remaining floors will be used for apartments.

The complex will include underground parking lots, a children’s playground, a sports center, a kindergarten and a leisure zone.

The expected loan portfolio volume for beneficiaries of the projects is 20 billion drams. The preferred conditions of the loan is – up to 20% pre-payment, up to 20 years repayment term, up to 8 % interest rate, currency – AMD.

The total value of the project is nearly 52 billion drams (nearly 110,000,000 dollars).

1250 jobs are expected to be created during the construction.

English –translator/editor: Stepan Kocharyan

Syrian: Massive IS bomb attack kills 44 in Kurdish Qamishlo city,

July 27, 2016 By administrator

QAMISHLO, Syria,— A massive bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group killed at least 44 people including civilians on Wednesday in the main Kurdish city of Qamishli, the Syrian state TV said.

The official SANA news agency said at least 140 people were also injured when a suicide bomber in a vehicle blew himself up in a western neighbourhood of the city.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Islamic State group, in a statement published by the IS-linked Aamaq news agency, said it carried out the attack in Qamishlo, describing it as a truck bombing that struck a complex of Kurdish offices. The extremist group has carried out several bombings in Kurdish areas in Syrian Kurdistan in the past.

It was the largest and deadliest attack to hit the city since the beginning of Syria’s conflict in March 2011.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor gave a toll of 48 dead, adding that children and women were among those killed.

Kurdish officials said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden truck.

The blast was initially described as a double bombing, but local officials and the Observatory said the bomb had detonated a nearby fuel container, leading to reports of a second explosion.

The area targeted houses several ministries of the local autonomous Kurdish administration of Democratic Union Party (PYD).

Qamishli resident Suleiman Youssef, a writer, told AP by telephone that he heard the first explosion from few miles away. He said the blasts leveled several buildings to the ground and many people were trapped under the rubble.

“Most of the buildings at the scene of the explosion have been heavily damaged because of the strength of the blast,” he said.

Jazeera Canton Interior Council Co-President Kenan Bereket who spoke to Ronahi TV on the deadly truck bomb attack that hit the Qamishlo city this morning said that more than 50 people lost their lives and many others were wounded, ANF reported.

Heyva Sor a Kurd teams affiliated to Jazeera Canton Health Council are making an examination at the scene of the attack near Gharbi Asayish (Public Security) Center.

The Kurdish Asayesh security forces told AFP “this is the largest explosion the city has ever seen.”

The area targeted houses several Kurdish administration buildings including the defence ministry and was considered a secure zone, with multiple checkpoints and security measures in place.

“This blast is the biggest in Qamishlo in terms of both the toll and the damage since the beginning of the war,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Local officials said hospitals in the city had been swamped with casualties from the attack.

The powerful Kurdish fighters have been a key force battling the IS jihadists in north and northeastern Syria and are the main component in the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance currently seeking to oust IS from Manbij.

They are backed by air strikes launched by the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

Qamishlo, near the Turkish border, is mainly controlled by Kurds but Syrian Assad government forces are present and control the city’s airport.

(With files from AFP | AP | ANF)

Turkey: Massive bomb explosion kills 4 Turkish soldiers in southeast

May 18, 2016 By administrator

A massive bomb explosion has ripped through a military vehicle in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeastern region, killing at least four soldiers and injuring nine others, security sources say.

The military said on Wednesday that the bomb was detonated as the vehicle was traveling in the town of Semdinli in the Hakkari Province near the Iraqi border.

Explosives had been laid in the road in advance of the soldiers’ convoy.

The Turkish military has reportedly deployed troops backed by helicopters to the troubled region to launch an operation in the wake of the fatal attack.

Earlier on Wednesday, a Turkish soldier was killed when he came under militant fire in the mainly Kurdish town of Nusaybin, situated at the Syrian border. The volatile town has been under a round-the-clock curfew for more than two months as Turkish forces attempt to root out militants.

Turkish fighter jets also bombarded overnight areas in Hakkari Province and in northern Iraq, killing at least 10 people.

he Turkish military has launched a large-scale military campaign against PKK militants in its southern border region since last year. The government has imposed curfew in the areas that have been targeted in the army’s anti-PKK campaign.

The Turkish military has also been pounding the group’s positions in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.

A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants following the Turkish strikes against the group.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The conflict has left thousands of people dead.

Turkish government replaces dozens of police chiefs

January 20, 2015 By administrator

Turkey’s government has initiated a massive reshuffling in the Police Department, with a circular replacing dozens of provincial police chiefs.

As the circular for replacements went into force early Jan. 20, a wide operation into the so-called “parallel structure” – members of the Gülen movement that had allegedly infiltrated the judiciary and security forces – was also launched.

According to the Interior Ministry circular published in the Jan. 20 edition of the Official Gazette, police chiefs in 15 provinces were sent back to the National Police Department headquarters in Ankara, while new police chiefs have been assigned to 21 provinces.

Meanwhile, in four provinces, including Ankara, a police operation into “the parallel structure” has been launched. Arrest warrants have been given for some of the suspects being sought in the operation, Anadolu Agency said, without elaborating.

The two moves come shortly after Turkey witnessed yet more mass reshuffling in the judiciary, with the government replacing almost 1,000 judges and prosecutors, raising more question marks over the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) motives in the latest restructuring of the country’s top judicial body.

A decree replacing 784 judicial officers and 104 administrative officers employed in the judicial bodies was released by the 1st Chamber of the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) late Jan. 15.

The judiciary has long been a key battleground between the government and what the AKP describes as the “parallel state” affiliated to the Fethullah Gülen movement.

Prosecutors and judges who were involved in controversial cases, which opposition parties said were actually used by the government as tools for its revanchist moves in cooperation with its former ally, U.S.-based Islamic scholar Gülen, were notably sent from the metropolitan city of Istanbul to less central provinces.

According to Jan. 20 circular, police chiefs in the provinces of Artvin, Bartın, Bitlis, Burdur, Bursa, Edirne, Gaziantep, Kahramanmaraş, Kars, Mersin, Muş, Ordu, Osmaniye, Uşak and Yalova were recalled to headquarters pending reassignment to other posts.

January/20/2015