President Robert Kocharyan seems to have taken Ex-President Levon Ter-Petrossian’s threats seriously. The incumbent president keeps speaking about his predecessor, and much like Ter-Petrossyan, who gave two long speeches already, but never said anything logical, sensible or at least original, Kocharyan also sounds like a tired, old gossip-monger.
“Our nation will never wish to return back to the 1995-96. I think many still retain bad memories of those years”, Kocharyan said in response to the questions of journalists on October 26, after taking part in the ceremony of opening the Iran-Armenia highway in Syunik (via Echannel). Now that’s a strange notion, isn’t it? Did LTP say he wants to take the nation back to 1995? I don’t think so, although that’s what all Hyelur Propaganda is about, and it seems, that this will soon become the motto of Republican campaign during the 2008 Presidential elections. Well, I guess they’ll have to think harder then that, if they plan to win this elections.
Of course there are some more logical points made the incumbent president, e.g. “There are at least 2-3 opposition politicians, who have higher authority”, or that “in 1999 they received only 1.1 percent of the vote, 2003 - 0.6, and 2008 - 1.3 percent[in the form of the Impeachment block]“. However, the President keeps stressing the bad memories of the mid-90’s, and notes “we will remind those who have forgotten”, adding “perhaps HHSh have seen, that the economy is now restored, and are thinking about the new opportunities to rob the country. I think that is the reason why they have entered this presidential bid”. While this might be partially true for most candidates running for president in Armenia, this “thought” also exposes the true motives of Robert Kocharyan for wanting to be president and thinking of retaining power after leaving his post. So that’s what its all about, Mr. Robert Kocharyan? Robbing the country? Is that what you were there for all these years? Are those the only terms under which you judge the motivation to presidency?
Well, I guess I should just discard most of the other “brilliant” thoughts expressed by President Kocharyan, because they simply make no sense, however, I can’t neglect this top-nonsense, expressed on another occasion (via Echannel):
“Of course after the collapse of the USSR there should be certain [economic] losses. I estimate those losses to be no more then 15-20% in the course of the first 2-3 years, after which new projects and new investment approaches should be put in place to compensate for the losses. This is how it happened in the Baltic Countries, Belarus, partly in Ukraine. In Armenia however, the economy was literally destroyed in several years.”
Right! So Mr. President thinks it logical to compare Baltic Countries with Armenia, a country at war and economic blockade and present this appalling half-truth as his best argument against Ter-Petrossian, proudly declaring, that “one should speak about economy only if one understands what it’s about”?
Why on earth don’t we set up some basic IQ tests before we let these guys run for presidency?
Looking at the statistics of my blog, and trying to analyze, what attracts people here, I have noticed, that for 3 months already the most popular search term, i.e. words, using which people are coming to my blog are: Gagik Tsarukyan, Prosperous Armenia, and Gagik Tsarukyan’s house. Since the readers are the most precious capital I have, I decided to help them find even more stuff about Gagik Tsarukyan, and here is a link to a video on YouTube, kindly provided by BeautifulMind333, showing the richest Armenian businessmen (most would prefer the term: oligarch), head of the Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan at his best.
The film is about the wedding of Gagik Tsarukyan’s daughter that took place last year, it shows the Oligarchs house in detail, passes on to the traditional toasts and dances, passes on to the mile long drive of limos, hammers accompanying the newly married couple to the wedding venue. In the end we have a glimpse of the party, where pop stars from Russia, Ukraine, Latvia sing live to cheer up the guests. There: enjoy! http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6UrE6e8J_Rw
Nothing better then sport to cheer up a poor Armenian soul these days. This article by ArmeniaNow surely did the trick for me as I was driving to Yerevan from Gyumri this morning:
Former IBF and IBO flyweight champion, Vic Darchinyan, 29-1, 23 KO’s, has returned to the ring to have his first bout following the dramatic loss of his titles to Filipino Nonito Donaire in July.
In his comeback fight last weekend, the Australia-based Armenian knocked out another Filipino boxer, Frederico Catubay, to capture the IBF and IBO Australasian super flyweight titles in Auburn, Australia, the local media reported.
Vic, ‘The Raging Bull’, Darchinyan dropped Catubay in rounds 7 and 11 before stopping him in the 12th with a knockout.
[]
Argentinean-Armenian David Nalbandian won Madrid Masters on Sunday having beaten the world’s two strongest players on the way to the title.
First he knocked out Rafael Nadal from Spain in the quarter finals and then beat the World Number One, Roger Federer, from Switzerland, in the final.
The Argentinean came back from a set down, to win the first Master Series title of his career (with the score 1-6, 6-3, 6-3). It is Nalbandian’s first title in more than a year. (Source: Spain Sport News).
The government was holding a question-and-answer period when five gunmen entered, led by Nairi Hunanyan who was a former journalist, plus his brother and uncle. They burst into the parliament chamber after they easily obtained passes allowing them to enter parliament, smuggling their weapons under their overcoats. They fired their automatic weapons and killed Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliamentary Speaker Karen Demirchyan, Deputy Speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan, Armenia’s Emergencies Minister Leonard Petrosyan, and at least three others. The United Nations General Assembly meeting was interrupted in its schedule to pay tribute to the victims of the shooting.[1]
Addressing around 10,000 people gathered for opposition rally at the Freedom Square on October 26, Levon Ter-Petrossian announced his intention to run for president concluding an hour long analysis of situation in the country, and noting, that his decision was prompted by the recent attempts to oppress his supporters by the incumbent authorities. Read the rest of this entry »
One day before the rally by Armenian opposition, where the Ex-President of the Country - Levon Ter-Petrossian, now a probable presidential candidate for the 2008 elections is going to make a speech, Haylur reporter Tatevik Nalbandyan has gone on the streets of Yerevan - asking people’s opinion about the Former president.
Interestingly, although there are generally two quite opposing views in the country about the former President, with some seeing him as the only viable alternative to the current ruling elite, the material has been designed like an anti Levon Ter-Petrossian propaganda piece, showing only negative opinions, and not a single reference to the other side.
Needless to say, that this falls far below the criteria of objective journalism, and is especially worrying, because it was broadcast by the Public TV of Armenia, which is supposed to serve the public interest and reflect the Armenian society as a whole, and not just the ruling elite and its supporters.
And although my personal attitude to the Former President is negative, I’d like to have a chance of listening the opposite camp as well - after all, this is what the media in a democratic society is obliged to do: to help its citizens make an informed choice, no?
Again via Romamerda1 we have updates from the latest developments about the arrest of Nicol Pashinyan and other members of “Impeachment” party who, as the video description says, “were unjustly imprisoned for 8 hours on 23 October in Yerevan. After the meeting with the 1st president Ter-Petrosyan, police finally freed them at 3:20am.” A large group of people was chanting “Battle,battle until the end” and applauding president Levon Ter-Petrosyans and others. Read the rest of this entry »
On 23 October, 2007, at 15:00, as reported by the Jounralists’ Club “Asparez”, 6 representatives of RA State Taxation Agency visited “GALA” TV and officially informed its founder Vahan Khachatryan that they will visit him again in 3 days time for a “regular inspection”.
The following is the list of visitors:
Gagik Ohanyan - head of RA State Tax Service first operative investigative unit
Hovik Havhannisyan - elder oper-officer
Harutyun Sukiasyan - chief oper-officer
Armen Hakobyan - oper-officer of RA State Tax Service, Shirak Regional Unit
Vardges Stepanyan - elder oper-officer
Samvel Aghababyan - chief oper-officer
The representatives of the State Tax service have been highly polite and respectful. The deadline for the mentioned 3 day period ends on October 26, 15:00.
Chairman of JCA Chouncil Levon Barseghyan
PS: Also see the announcement of the founder of GALA TV Vahan Khachatryan and the announcement of 6 NGOs regarding the developments around GALA TV.
Armenia was once again in the world headlines owing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s two day visit which started on October 22, 2007. Interestingly, the bloggers here paid close to zero attention to the major event - which is surprising, given the anti-Bush sentiment in recent days resulting from US President’s negative attitude towards Armenian genocide resolution in US Congress. The visit of the Iranian President was mostly a working one, although some media are trying to see connections with Russian president V. Putin’s visit to Iran a week ago and building various conspiracy theories. Read the rest of this entry »
Armenian Bloggers kept following the developments around US Congress Resolution 106 last week. However, unlike the posts following immediately after the adoption of this House Committee resolution, the skeptical attitude prevailed this time. The main motive is that of blaming the United States and especially G. W. Bush in hypocrisy, while the most commonly sounded idea was, in various alterations and combinations that: Turks will remain Turks (with all the negative connotation attached to the name Turk accumulated in the course of the past 100+ years following the first mass killings of Armenians in the days of the Bloody Sultan - Sultan Hamid and passing on to the First Genocide of the 20th Century).
Here are again in more or less chronological order, extracts from some of the more prominent Armenian Bloggers in Armenian, English and Russian. At that - I have to draw special attention at the coverage of the developments by Onnik Krikoryan at his blog, as well as his first post at the Global Voices Online. He has undoubtedly provided the fullest coverage, bringing updates and opinions not only from the world news headlines, Armenian information sources, but also from blogospheres in US, Turkey and Armenia. As to the other Bloggers, we have seen once again, that if there is any single issue that can unite all Armenians - it is the Armenian Genocide and it is the pain, that lives in all of us down to the levels of subconscious and genome. On to the extracts now: Read the rest of this entry »
I found this announcement today on the YouTube - a user called romamerda1 who seems to have joined the YouTube especially for the purpose of uploading this video has entitled it:”26 October 07 - the meeting for the future of Armenia” and has concluded the video description with the words: “FOR THE LIBERTY OF ARMENIA !!!” Read the rest of this entry »
Ringing the fresh bell as usual, Rhyne says with all the due sarcasm, that there are far more important things in life then the passing of genocide bill. Things like Miss Armenia 2007 Contest. I could add to that the splendid show that Nor Radio had organized in the Republic Square today.
Quoting Panorama.am the blogger notes, that “Margarita Sarukhanyan, the “Miss Armenia 2007,” was handed the crown by Marina Vardanyan who was announced the best during Miss Armenia – 2006 contest. The crown costs $7,000. It has 425 diamond stones, 14 ruby and carbuncle. It is made of white gold. Thus, Margarita Sarukhanyan was awarded the right to represent Armenia during “Miss Europe.”"
Of course the crown should cost more Rhyne says, but hey, here in Armenia $7000 is more then a family of two hard working school teachers will earn for a year, so that additional zero you’re talking about, can be easily traced down to the overall economic situation. Wait till we get that 2.5 billion dollar budget, and I’m sure things will improve for Miss Armenia too
For now, let me readily agree with Rhyne that beauty will save this world, but of course the Genocide bill is the TOP priority!
Several days ago JLiving Notes was speculating, that the 106 resolution on Armenian Genocide adopted by the House Committee, will remain the focal point of many blog discussions for the days to come, saying he wants to believe, that for once historical justice will win (asking sceptically - if there is such thing at all). The British Times have been digging their archives and come up with more “hard” facts to support the Congress decision - the full text of this report from October 8, 1995 has already circulated through a large number of Armenian blogs, with the HayBlog and Kornelij Glas among the first to come up with the story.
To one who remembers the rejoicings which welcomed the bloodless Turkish Revolution of 1908, the fraternization of Moslem and Christian, the confidence in a better future for the Armenians which survived even the Adana massacre of 1909, the story of the systematic persecution of the Armenians of Turkey is a bitter tale to tell. Talaat Bey and his extremist allies have out-Hamided Abdul Hamid. They have even shocked their German friends, thus attaining eminence in “frightfulness” to which the “Red Sultan” never soared.
Uzogh is not impressed though, this is “democracy in action” he says, pointing to this list of Congressmen supporting the resolution at the moment, and noting, that while the number has dropped from 226 to 218, there is still enough support to pass the resolution in the 435 seat Congresss.
Mark Grigoryan reports, that the “Reporters sans frontiers” annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index has been released, and brings the places occupied by the countries of post-soviet space, contesting them with the ratings of UK and USA:
Estonia - 3-4
Latvia – 12
Lithuenia – 23
UK – 24
USA – 48
Georgia – 66
Armenia – 77
Moldova – 81
Ukraine – 92-93
Kyrgyzstan – 110
Tajikistan – 115
Kazakhstan – 125
Azerbaijan – 139
Russia – 144
Belarus – 151
Uzbekistan – 160
Turkmenistan – 167
Uzogh has done some research on the subject and come up with an interesting question: “With Azerbaijan everything is clear - they just like to put journalists to jail. With Georgia everything is clear too. What I don’t understand is our rating - we have jumped from 101st place to 77th. How did that happen?” There are some really interesting speculations in the comments section of Uzogh’s blog around the subject, but I suggest you go take a look at them there (if you know Russian of course).
Uzogh has been working on creating an Armenian rating system for blogs, making use of the already existing Yandex.ru rating system for LiveJournal. The table I am publishing below has been derived from Uzogh’s second beta test of the service. Although this rating system does not include any Armenian blogs outside the LiveJournal blogging community, the results are already very intersting, especially if we concider the fact, that the most active Armenian blogosphere is undoubtedly currently based in LiveJournal, where we do have very many interesting blogs which attract the highest number of readers. I have only added links to the top 10 blogs. For the rest, just use the name you see and add .livejournal.com. For example, if you want to see angry-root’s livejournal (which is my LiveJournal blog) , use http://angry-root.livejournal.com to see the blog it represents. Good job so far, Uzogh, waiting for further improvements.
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Armenia, Campaign, Development, Economy, Elections, Government, Opposition, Politics | Tagged: 2008 Presidential Elections, Armenia, Kocharyan, Levon Ter-Petrossian | 
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Addressing around 10,000 people gathered for opposition rally at the Freedom Square on October 26, Levon Ter-Petrossian announced his intention to run for president concluding an hour long analysis of situation in the country, and noting, that his decision was prompted by the recent attempts to oppress his supporters by the incumbent authorities. 
Ringing the fresh bell as usual, 
Of course the crown should cost more 
Organizers of BarCamp Caucasus 2008 are happy to invite bloggers, journalists, IT-experts and all who are interested in the subject to the first official meeting on First Bloggers Non-Conference in the Caucasus!
