Armenia

Imitation has been the main working style of Armenia’s current administration: imitation of democracy, imitation of electoral process, imitation of coalition, imitation of free market, imitation of anti-corruption strategy… The news from Transparency Armenia about resigning from the RA Anti-Corruption Strategy Monitoring Commission comes to prove just that - after a conversation with fellow-blogger […]

Armenialiberty.org reports on some shocking news. A 44 year old father of 4, Jivan Hakopian, from the Armavir region, set himself alight by pouring petrol on himself and chanted anti-government slogans outside the main government buildings in Yerevan. He was taken to hospital but died later.

His family are not commenting, and the Mayor of […]

ArmeniaLiberty reports on the apparently violent infighting in one of Armenia’s oldest conservative opposition parties : “The Union for Constitutional Rights” . It seems that Hrant Khachatrian, the party’s former leader, who was ousted during a recent congress by Hayk Babukhanian, attempted to enter the party headquarters. The result was a violent clash, and […]

2006 Global Integrity Report Investigates and Assesses Anti-Corruption Mechanisms in 43 Countries, including the United States

Raffi Kojian at Cilicia.com’s Life in Armenia has an albeit short post on Armenia’s ranking by the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation which once again paints a rosy picture of the climate for investment. Still, it appears as though the rankings are more based on legislation passed rather than actual investment or indeed, […]

While UK, at least for myself, appears as the fore-post of democracy in the world, Armenia in line with a number of other former Soviet States, has become one of the labs where the huge Russian experiment on developing a form of Contained Democracy - a democratic imitation is undertaken.

Armenialiberty.org reports on the plight of the 3 Armenian army conscripts accused last year of murdering two fellow soldiers in Karabagh. Whilst the military prosecutors charged the soldiers with murder,one of the conscripts claimed he was forced into confession through torture, and subsequently withdrew his “confession”

Human rights groups have been criticising the trial for […]

Hayk Newspaper reports, that the Forbs - Armenian service soon to be launched in Armenia, will publish the following list of ten richest people in Armenia in the first issue of the magazine. Hayk draws readers attention to the fact, that 6 of the 10 people in the list are high ranking state officials.
Gagik Tsarukyan […]

Berd, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004
A reader of this blog sent me this letter by Areg Gharabegian, a member of the Armenian Engineers and Scientists of America (AESA), for publication. After checking the veracity of what is claimed within this letter with some local environmental organizations, I have […]

Transparency International, the world’s leading anti-corruption watchdog, today released its annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI). According to the organization based in Germany but with a Chapter in Armenia, there is no progress in the fight against corruption here. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s English language site has more.
An international anti-corruption watchdog has ranked Armenia 93rd […]