From BusinessWeek’s blogs:
So without further ado, here’s my list of the top ten performing economies, based on the growth of per-capita GDP over the past ten years.
Bosnia and Herzegovina..305.6%
Armenia……………..145.6%
Belarus……………..126.3%
Azerbaijan…………..120.7%
China……………….108.5%
Estonia……………..102.6%
Latvia……………….98.3%
Georgia………………97.5%
Turkmenistan………….92.9%
Kazakhstan……………89.1%Certainly a lot of ex-communist countries on this list, aren’t there?
On occasion I’ll do a search for Armenia or Armenian on eBay. Some of the more interesting things that I’ve found include drams selling for much more than they are worth, weird art, ugly dolls, and a DVD of Armenian women in their underwear, just to name a few.
Granted, my taste may be different from that of others, but these items on eBay were too ugly not to mention.
Anyone else have weird Armenicana items found on eBay worth sharing?
Today’s Guardian has an article about America’s reluctance to come down on Karimov in Uzbekistan.
America has too much at stake (i.e. oil) to come down on Uzbekistan. What does that mean for activists in other key oil allied states like AZ?
more…
The new Carnival of Revolutions is up at registan.net. CoR is a weekly update on democracy related news around the world. It is a wonderful way to get a glance at what is going on around the world.
Blogrel will be hosting CoR later this summer.
While many nationalists in the Diaspora seem concerned only with the territories surrounding Karabagh, the priority for the Armenian government is very definitely the status of the disputed territory. This difference appears to have been confirmed by the Armenian Foreign Minister, Vartan Oskanian. As reported by PanArmenian.net, Oskanian directly links the possibility of returning seven territories to Azerbaijan with an agreement on Karabagh’s status.
Another story covered by RFE/RL concerns the arrest of one of the Human Rights Ombudsman’s staff members for corruption. The employee was apparently arrested over he was caught taking a bribe of $300 from the owner of a restaurant in central Yerevan. Police illegally broke into the Ombudsman’s office on Friday morning and confiscated computers containing complaints of human rights abuses that should remain confidential.
“I have received no written assurances that the confidential information contained in the computer will not be used to the detriment of plaintiffs and government officials mentioned in their appeals,” Alaverdian said, calling NSS actions “inadmissible.” She also charged that the security agency violated the suspect’s legally guaranteed presumption of innocence by having state television broadcast the secretly filmed images.
According to EurasiaNet, Russia has agreed to pull out its last remaining military bases from the Republic of Georgia by 2008. The process will start immediately and the first to close by October 2007 will be the military base in Akhalkalaki in the mainly Armenian-populated region of Samtskhe-Javakheti. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is requesting guarantees that military equipment will not be relocated to Armenia.
The full article can be read online here and for those interested, Civil.ge has an unofficial translation of the full declaration signed by the Foreign Ministers of Russia and Georgia here.
RFE/RL also reports that violence and allegations of fraud marred elections in Hrazdan at the weekend. According to the preliminary results released by the local election commission, the incumbent Mayor, Aram Danielian, won by less than 350 votes. Danielian is affiliated to the ruling Republican Party of the Prime Minister, Andranik Markarian.
Violence reportedly broke out outside three polling stations as the voting drew to a close late on Sunday. Shaboyan supporters said they were attacked and indiscriminately beaten up by special police forces sent from Yerevan. They said the police used truncheons and electric-shock equipment to intimidate them.
[…]
Another proxy of the mayor’s challenger who identified herself as Astghik claimed that the police “nearly killed” a man and beat up a boy outside another polling station.
Radio Free Europe’s Armenia Service reports that Council of Europe is deeply unhappy with the controversial amendments to the constitution that will be put to referendum later in the year. Constitutional reform was one of the conditions for Armenia’s accession to the CE in 2001.
“The members of the Venice Commission’s Working Group on constitutional reform in Armenia expressed their deep dissatisfaction with this text, as most of the Commission’s comments have not been taken into consideration,” the commission said in a statement.
[…]
Their recommendations would in particular give more powers to the National Assembly, seriously limit the president’s controversial authority to appoint and sack virtually all judges and make the mayor of Yerevan an elected official. The Armenian authorities have so far been reluctant to embrace such changes.
Personally, I think that having chosen the path of integration with Europe, the government must draw up a constitution that meets with the approval of the CE as well as civil society. I think that nobody who wants to see Armenia develop democratically can question the importance of these changes.
The full article can be read online here.
I stumbled across a blog posting that says that the “Caucasus nations of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, the sex ratio has reached as high as 120…”
This sounded odd to me, so I did a little research. I found this quote on a US government website as well.
more…
BakuToday.net reports that the United States will be conducting exit polls at the request of the Azerbaijani Government for the parliamentary elections to be held in November. This is excellent news because it was one of the main factors in identifying vote falsifications in the 2003 parliamentary elections in Georgia. It is also very encouraging because it means that Armenia will undoubtedly have to follow suit in parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2007 and 2008.
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The referendum on Constitution failed by a large margin, although most politicians were in support of the draft. Most voters were not well-informed about the draft but, nevertheless, had very strong feelings about it. Many of the voters who voted against the Constitution did so because they strongly dislike the President.
Sounds familiar? Well, the story is that the French voters on Sunday May 29 defeated the EU Constitution draft. Of interest to Armenia is this commentary from BBC:
The French government distributed 46 million copies of the constitution to French voters in the last two weeks of May. At the same time, polls showed the size of the “No” vote increasing.
Before the copies of the text were sent out, two-thirds of voters described themselves as poorly informed. High levels of ignorance were also recorded when Spanish voters backed the constitution in a referendum in March.
It’s interesting that a month ago the electorate was split evenly and there were commentaries about the importance of French-Armenian vote, who were expected to vote ‘Non’ to derail Turkish accession to the EU. At the end of the day, however, the French referendum failed for completely different reasons and by a large margin.
Hagop over at Cilicia.com’s Diaspora blog has just pointed me in the direction of a very informative web based education resource to go with PBS’s series on the oil trade:
Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War and in the wake of two wars in the Gulf and Iraq, all the world’s easy oil has been found. Today, the oil industry has to go to extremes to find new sources of the asset that drives the world’s economy and fuels so many aspects of modern life. EXTREME OIL crisscrosses the globe like the transcontinental pipelines themselves, exposing a wide range of issues — and meeting people who wrestle with the dilemmas of how to ensure the supply we need, at a price we will tolerate.
The section on the Baku-Tbilisi-Pipeline can be found online here.
Iran has been one of this week’s hot topics on Blogrel. Coincidentally, Caucaz.com has an article this week on Armenian life in Iran.
The article focuses on Isfahan, which is a much more solid Armenian community than the Tehran community, perhaps.
more…
The events of the last couple of days have caused me to wonder why Armenians are so disorganized and act inappropriately at any kind of public event. I have seen Armenian arrogance in full force in many places, most predominantly in Boston and Yerevan for sure. But the testimonials from a friend as to what occured at Cinema Moscow on Friday and at Aragats on Saturday really lead me to believe that Armenians will really never understand the proper way of doing things. The concept of organization is still a mystery to them, and I don’t know when that mystery will be solved.
You can read my commentary by clicking here.
I have just written the first in what I hope to be a series of occasional restaurant and food reviews. Here’s an excerpt:
One place that I have often frequented when pining for pizza is called Diamond and is located at the very end of Abovyan as you enter Republic Square on the right side, just next to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Firstly, the dough is fresh, and not rolled out too thin. They offer nearly 20 selections, with each one featuring a variety of interesting topping combinations from fresh vegetables to the dried meats “sujukh” and “basterma” to various kinds of Russian sausage. The cheese resembles or is mozzarella, and the tomato base seems to be a tangy sauce with hints of oregano and other spices. Pizza is most always served in Armenia regardless of where it is eaten with ketchup, spicy or sweet, which you will find here as well.
Read the complete article by clicking here.
PanArmenian.net reports that 170,000 people have gathered in a 15-minute “dance of unity” round Mount Aragats. Representatives of the Guiness Book of Records are meant to be in attendance as well. However, ArmInfo says that there may be as many as 500,000 assembled for the event that was timed to coincide with the Day of the First Republic.
According to the report, the whole of Yerevan was apparently paralyzed as buses, taxis and minivans were diverted from their routes to transport people to locations around the mountain.
The Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor reports that an international conference dedicated to Talysh issues has been held in Yerevan. The event organized by Yerevan State University and the Center for Iranian Studies is viewed by some analysts as an attempt to promote further ethnic separatism in Azerbaijan.
The Talysh are a largely agricultural, Shia Muslim population, speaking dialects closely related to Farsi. They reside for the most part near Azerbaijan’ border with Iran, around the towns of Lerik, Lenkoran, and Astara on the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan’s official statistics put the number of Talysh at approximately 80,000. Some Talysh estimate the size of their group at up to half a million in Azerbaijan (and a comparable number across the border in Iran). The attempt by unidentified circles in Armenia to reopen the dormant Talysh issue coincides with reports of significant progress in the negotiations with Azerbaijan over Karabakh, and may be designed to complicate the overall situation.
Incidentally, according to the report on the conference published by the Arka News Agency, the Head of the Department for Iranian Studies of Yerevan State University, Professor Garnik Asatryan, was specifically involved. Asatrian is considered to be one of the main proponents of promoting a separate ethnic Yezidi identity in Armenia. The issue has divided the republic’s largest national minority.
The article by the Jamestown Foundation’s Vladimir Socor can be read online here.
Azg reports that the Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, will arrive in Yerevan today to accompany the French-Armenian singer, Charles Aznavour, to Tbilisi. Aznavour will later travel to Akhaltskhe in the mainly Armenian populated Georgian region of Samtskhe-Javakheti. Aznavour’s father, Misha, was born in the town.
Hopefully the Georgians will be better organized than Armenians were. When Aznavour arrived at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport, a friend describes the scene as a disgrace and yesterday’s book signing organized by the youth wing of the ruling Republican Party was apparently a disaster.
While in Armenia, however, Aznavour was at least decorated by the Armenian President, Robert Kocharian, with the Order of the Fatherland a week after the same honor was awarded to the US billionaire, Kirk Kerkorian. Aznavour also presented the Matenadaran with an ancient manuscript bought at auction and attended the opening ceremony of a water pipeline in the Aragatsotn region that was partially financed by the “Aznavour for Armenia” charity.
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