Tag Archives: Armenia

Armenia’s ex-President receives cancer treatment

JAN. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s first post-Soviet president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, had treatment for cancer in a hospital in California, media reported. It had been reported earlier in January that Mr Ter-Petrosyan, 71, had flown to the US for emergency treatment. He had been president from 1991-1998. He was a divisive figure who in 2008, was accused of whipping up anti-government protests that triggered clashes with security forces. At least 16 people died in the clashes when police opened fire on the protesters.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Grange builds plant in Armenia

FEB. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pakistani firm Grange Power agreed a deal with Armenia over the construction of a 234 MW gas-fired power station near Vanadzor in northern Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Georgia-Armenia sign military deal

FEB. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia and Armenia signed a defence deal that ministers said should improve training and strategic planning between the two countries. The deal, signed in Yerevan, is probably most important for Armenia which is still officially at war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Azerbaijani soldier dies in N-K

FEB. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani officials said that one of its soldiers had died during a shoot- out with Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. They also said that three Armenian soldiers had died in fighting, a claim that the Armenia backed government of the region denied. A cease-fire between Azerbaijan and Armenia-backed fighters around Nagorno-Karabakh is looking increasingly fragile.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Armenia’s population sinks below 3 million

JAN. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Emigration from Armenia shrunk its population below 3m for the first time since the 1970s, a psychologically-important threshold and a statistic that highlights a population outflow trend across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Armenia’s statistics agency said that the population fell in 2015 by 12,000 people to 2,998,600 people — the lowest level since 1977.

It’s also more evidence of a trend which has seen Armenia’s population shrink by 36,000 in the past five years and by 643,000 since 1991 when it became independent from the Soviet Union.

Armenia has large diaspora populations in France, Russia, the United States and across the Middle East. Most of the outflow is driven by people looking to join relatives in these countries and boost their job prospects.

One of the biggest problems for Armenian policymakers is that most of the people leaving Armenia are young and well-educated. This puts pressure on Armenia’s system with its aging population.

In 2013, the government ordered the State Statistics Committee to investigate the causes and results of this declining population.

There has been some inflow into Armenia over the past few years with ethnic Armenians who had previously lived in Aleppo, Syria, fleeing a civil war.

The Armenian government has accepted around 16,000 refugees from Syria.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)

Soldier pleads guilty in Armenia

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Valery Permyakov, a Russian conscript soldier, pleaded guilty to assaulting and killing a family of seven in the Armenian town of Gyumri last year. The murders triggered anti-Russia protests outside Russia’s military base, its biggest in the South Caucasus, and threatened to damage bilateral relations.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Fitch raises Armenian GDP

JAN. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ratings agency Fitch said it forecasts GDP growth in Armenia of 2% in 2016. The agency also revised upwards its prediction on the final 2015 results. According to Fitch, Armenia grew by 2.7% in 2015, pushed up by a relatively positive trade balance. While imports fell sharply by 26% compared to 2014, exports only contracted by 1% in the same period.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Swine flu deaths rise in Armenia

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s health ministry said that 18 people had died in the past two months from the H1N1 strain of swine flu, media reported, up from an earlier death toll of 10. The health ministry denied that the deaths had reached epidemic proportions but neighbouring countries have also started to report deaths linked to swine flu.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Qatar expands routes to Armenia and Azerbaijan

JAN. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Qatar Airways, the country’s flagship airline, said it would expand its routes in the South Caucasus in Q1 and Q2 of 2016. The company announced the opening of a new Doha-Yerevan route from May 2016. Qatar Airways will fly four times a week to Armenia’s capital. The company also plans to expand from seven to eleven the weekly flights to Baku, from the end of March.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Editorial: Iran’s return

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – There is much excitement in our region over the emergence of Iran after over a decade of US-imposed sanctions.

New flight connections, new pipelines, new transmission lines and more is what a sanctions-free Iran could bring to the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

Iran has struck a deal with Air Astana to open the Almaty-Tehran air route. It has also revived talks with Turkmenistan about gas fields and pipelines around the Caspian.

Potentially, a new network to the east of the Caspian Sea could facilitate the European Union’s plans to import gas from the region. Azerbaijan may well be interested in such deals as well. In addition, Iran could become an important supplier of gas to both Armenia and Georgia.

On the flip side, Iran’s accession to the global oil market will undoubtedly drive the price of oil further down, it has huge oil reserves and production capacity, increasing the pressure on the budgets of oil-exporting economies in the region.

ENDS

Editorial from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)