NIGERIA WILL HAVE AN AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA FOR THE FIRST TIME
A1+
[06:23 pm] 11 May, 2006
Today RA Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan received Negerian newly
appointed ambassador to Armenia Ganayama Abubakari (residence in
Tehran) in order to hand him credetials.
During the meeting the RA Foreign Minister congradulated the Ambassador
of the Negerian Federal Republic on his nomination and new office
and wished good luck in his further mission.
While expressing his gratification on having Negerian Ambassador
to Armenia for the first time Minister Oskanyan claimed that such
initiative will promote the development of Armenian – Negerian
relations.
The two sides referred to the possibilities of international
cooperation and integriation to international organizations and
discussed regional issues.

WE HAVE NO POLITICAL CULTURE
Panorama.am
12:53 11/05/06
“I think that the political culture is underdeveloped here. Otherwise,
we would not be called a post-Soviet country but a democratic state
based on rule of law.
We have much to do in this regard,” Human Rights Ombudsman Armen
Harutunian told a conference at Yerevan State University.
He thinks that adoption of laws and structural changes are not the
most important things for post-soviet countries as long as the soviet
states had some achievements in those fields. “We need development
of a political culture so that people change their mentality and ways
of thinking,” he said.
Another issue is whether the adopted laws are, in fact, enforced or
the structures are functional.
According to political scientist Aghasi Yenokyan, Armenian has stayed
behind of democratic processes during the last few years. “Structures
and institutions for a democratic state are in place.
However they do not perform their basic functions,” he said.
Armenia is in more favorable conditions in terms of democracy as
compared with Azerbaijan, he said. “But compared with Baltics,
we have much to do because our country has never experienced fair
elections, as the Ukraine or Georgia have done,” says the political
scientist.

REMUNERATION FOR “PROPER JOB” MUST NOT BE LESS THAN USD 60
Panorama.am
14:59 11/05/06
Government decision set the amount for the remuneration of a proper
job today and standards for access to transport. According to the
decision, proper jobs are offered to people registered at their local
employment centers. Remuneration is defined as an amount which should
be higher than thrice as much as the employment benefit. According
to the standards set for the transport accessibility, it says that
jobs should be offered within the same community so that people can
use only one transport means to get to their work places.
The employment benefit as of January of the running year amounts to
AMD 9000. That is, proper jobs should offer at least AMD 27 thousand
which equals to USD 60.
The decision will unveil cases which are very common in Armenia,
that is, many people do improper jobs since their salaries are lower
than USD 60.

YEREVAN ARCHITECTURE DISCUSSED
Panorama.am
15:07 11/05/06
Yerevan chief architect Samvel Danielyan expressed his emotions today
in regard to construction in Yerevan.
“This is a very interesting time period which is full of clashes of
mentality. In future we may not face such a massive construction,”
he said.
On behalf of Mkrtich MINASYAN, Chairman of Architects’ Union and Gurgen
MUSHEGHYAN, Yerevan Design Institute Head, Samvel Danielyan stated that
they are not satisfied with the architectural outlook of the buildings.
Minasyan admitted that one of their failures is that they sanctioned
construction at public places. “This is a negative thing for our city
which lacks green areas,” he said. “If we were more experienced at
that time we would allocate land for green areas and today instead
of numerous cafes we would have green zones.
However, would the public understand us at that time,” he adds.
The Head of Architects’ Union referred to Zangu gorge as an example of
a green zone which is not looked after property. According to him, it
could be a very nice place for Yerevan residents to spend their time.
“Those who come to the gorge may notice that nothing is left from
the river Zangu here. We have a very nice gift from nature which we
destroy with our own hands,” he said.
The Head of Architects’ Union expressed his dissatisfaction with
the fact that nothing is left from one time Tamanyan architectural
Yerevan. Gurgen Musheghyan also joined him in his discontent.

NO SCHOOL CHILDREN TO GRADUATE IN 2011
Panorama.am
15:41 11/05/06
There will be no school graduates in the year 2011.
This is conditioned by the fact that those who went to school in
2001 will finish their school education after 11 years instead of
normal 10, Norair Ghukasyan, deputy education and science minister
told a briefing followed by a government session today. There will
be no problems connected with draft but the number of applicants to
higher educational establishments will considerable decrease, he said.
It turns out that 1-5 class schoolchildren will go to school for 11
years, 5-10 class schoolchildren – for 10. Part of the schoolchildren
who went to school this year will study for 11 years and the other
part for 12. Certain legal amendments came to be necessary as a result
of 12-year educational system. The government session approved the
draft Law on Education according to which children will start school
at the age of 6.

ARMENIA BACK FROM WESTERN EUROPE FOR 30 YEARS
Panorama.am
16:40 11/05/06
“The situation observed on roads of Armenia was existing in Western
Europe 30 years ago when the number of cars increased sharply,” Max
Mosly, the president of International Automobile Federation told a
press conference today.
As Mosly and David Ward, Executive Director of Fund FIA noted their
visit aims to support the newly established National Council of Road
Safety in Armenia. “Actually, no one in Armenia uses security belts,”
Mosly said. David Ward assures that after 5 years of using security
belts the records on road mortality will report sharp decrease. They
say 95% of drivers in Switzerland use security belts.
Today in the capital park “Victory” a special training apparatus
will be exhibited for showing the usage of security belts. This is
a start of public advocacy program to use security belts. The second
part of the program will be education on driving, Mkrtich Piltoyan,
Armenian Automobile Federation president said.

RESIDENTS VS. GOVERNMENT – WHO WILL BE MORE PERSISTENT?
Panorama.am
18:23 11/05/06
The residents of Northern Alley and other areas seem to be no less
persistent than the government officials. The residents of those
areas are dislocated because the land is sold to other owners. They
continuously rebel however their applications remain without solution
at the government tables.
Today the residents organized a demonstration right on the day of
government session near the government building. Vachagan Hakobyan,
the chairman of Northern Alley protection committee said that
they are only protecting their rights and are persistent in their
demands. According to him, their case was one of the reasons why
Armenia was not included in UN Human Rights Council. They have met
UN representative and told him everything about the case. However,
UN said that they are not entitled to do anything.
The residents claim they they have suffered both material and
psychological damage. 8th person among the residents is suffering from
some kind of illness because of the psychological attack.

HOPE OF DISCOVERING CAUSE OF A320 CRASH
Lragir.am
12 May 06
The location of the black boxes of Armenian A320, which plunged
into the sea near Sochi, is detected more and more precisely. The
headquarters of technical support of the headquarters of search for
the victims and plane reported to ITAR TASS on May 11 that the FDR and
CVR of A320, which crashed on May 3, are at the bottom of the sea. On
May 12 additional telemetric investigation is planned. By preliminary
data, the black boxes are at a depth of 500 m, at a distance of 5 m
from each other.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

RAT BEGOT OSTRICH
Hakob Badalyan
Lragir.am
12 May 06
The developments connected with the Orinats Yerkir Party appeared as
a peculiar indicator of the political sphere in Armenia and revealed
a number of realities of the environment inside the government,
or confirmed these realities. It is extremely interesting that the
branches of power failed to give an assessment of the rats abandoning
the ship of Orinats Yerkir; a simple assessment is meant. Instead,
everyone hurried to deny having any connection with and pushing the
abandoners. It turns out that the businessmen came out of the party on
purely ideological dissent. In the meantime, the OYP does not seem to
have modified its ideology. Arthur Baghdasaryan’s statement on pursuing
membership to NATO and EU would hardly have aroused an ideological riot
among businessmen members of the party, considering that NATO and the
EU are presently the most attractive partners, and their members are
economically the most developed countries in the world. In other words,
economically, this ideology should have attracted and not repelled
a businessman. For the disagreement between Arthur Baghdasaryan
and former Orinats Yerkir members on the privatization policies,
it cannot be ideological because the problem of lawfulness of the
sell-off was considered rather than the problem of privatizing or not
privatizing. And for a businessman, lawful privatization should be
an implicit and prime issue because a businessman is not protected
unless there is lawful economic competition.
It is unambiguous that the businessmen who left Orinats Yerkir did not
have any reason for ideological dissent. And if the branches of power
are putting forward instead of the businessmen suggestions involving
ideology, this looks like an attempt of misleading the “investigation”
rather. And in similar cases it is beyond suspect that they made
this attempt in an effort to hide the main reason, which actually
does not need a proof. Why are the government afraid of confessing
that they lead the offensive against the Orinats Yerkir? Whereas,
one tends to think that even a rivalry should have started within
the government to show off their power of emptying factions with a
single blow. Who do they fear? The Orinats Yerkir?
Probably not, because otherwise they would not have launched the
offensive.
However, nonetheless, declining laurels could have been caused by
a feeling of fear and responsibility. And the problem is not the
Orinats Yerkir at all. It is neither the first nor the last political
party, which will experience the whole glamor and wretchedness of
rats abandoning the ship. This very consciousness frightens the
government, and makes them keep silent or shift the problem to an
ideological plane. Nobody wants to assume responsibility for rats
abandoning the ship, acknowledging that with every dissolving
party the so-called political system is coming apart, if it
exists in Armenia at all. And the responsibility for dismantling
a political system is much greater, for here the country’s future,
and consequently the future of generations is concerned. Besides,
when a political system is coming apart, its fragments may fly to
anywhere and cause pain to anyone, independent of what this force
is, ideological or opportunistic. Therefore, everyone is afraid of
giving proper names to things, supposing that by giving a name to
a thing it acquires corresponding contents. This is the reason why
the society is constantly hearing expressions about economic growth,
stability and the like, but does not see any real changes.
The political forces of Armenia look like an ostrich, not because
they are fast or tall. Simply they tend to think like this naive
bird that there is no danger unless you see it. If they describe the
reason why rats abandon the ship as ideological, it stops being a
threat against the political system, and one becomes “ideologically”
protected. Whereas everyone seems to agree that the Orinats Yerkir is
not the first and the last, which means that all the political forces
of Armenia are not protected, even though training rats is considered
a political ideology, and keeping silent about it is referred to as
a virtue.

COALITION’S DEAD, LONG LIVE COALITION!
Lragir.am
12 May 06
The secession of the Orinats Yerkir from the coalition marks the
end of the history of the ruling coalition. Oppositionist Member
of Parliament Hrant Khachatryan thus defined the situation in the
parliament on May 12 at the Pastark Club. However, he adds that the
history of coalition is not over for Armenia. In other words, we will
see other coalitions. As a result of scheduled or early elections.
Hrant Khachatryan does not exclude that the end of the coalition will
lead to an early election. The member of parliament even thinks that
the government may find an early election expedient because an early
election is held at a rather fast pace and allows solving a number of
problems by bringing together forces in a short period. Under these
circumstances, Hrant Khachatryan thinks that the opposition should
support the positive arguments of these developments and render the
negative arguments harmless.
“In other words, to keep the society alert, for it to be ready to
express its opinion during both scheduled and early elections. To
strengthen the political parties. You know that in the previous
elections both the government and opposition parties underwent
losses, both in terms of finance and human resources,” says Hrant
Khachatryan. According to him, under these circumstances the opposition
also needs to interpret these developments correctly.
Hrant Khachatryan says it is necessary to make profound analyses and
not to go in for surface observations, directing the slings and arrows
at one man. The leader of the Constitutional Right Union announces
that when Ter-Petrosyan was still in office, he criticized battling
a separate person, it is necessary to convey to the society that the
system is to blame.