Politics:

ARF Dashnaktsutyun promises restless January to authorities

Home policy review for December 14-21

December 19, 2009
Major events of the past week were the visit of the NKR parliamentary delegation to Armenia, the arrival of Turkish journalists and the inner-party conflicts in the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party of Armenia. As usual several sharp statements were made by ARF Dashnaktsutyun. A number of political scientists assessed the current state of Armenian-Turkish relations. There was also the anticipated reaction from the Republican Party of Armenia in relation to its party members - the RA National Assembly MPs, who had spoken in support of Sasun Mikaelyan.
Economy:

Armenia summing up results of 2009

Weekly economic review for Dec. 12-19

December 19, 2009
The crisis taught lessons to Armenia and highlighted its main shortcomings: weak diversification and lack of competitiveness, therefore, to overcome the effects of the crisis the country should provide three essential conditions, head of World Bank Armenian Office Aristomene Varoudakis said. According to him, in order to increase competitiveness of Armenian economy the country need to creating more favorable environment for investors, reduce the role of oligopolies, minimize, or even eliminate corruption in tax authorities, develop infrastructures, particularly in transport and IT spheres," he said.
Armenia and world:

Egypt can become a truly leading country in Greater Middle East

The fact that Egypt became an initiator and conductor of the peace talks with Israel is not by accident. Thus, at least for a while, it became a country to be reckoned with.

December 18, 2009
Turkey stepped up its efforts in the struggle for regional leadership because of the weakness of Egypt. According to the Egyptian opposition, Turkey and Iran make use of the weakness of the Arab world to conquer the whole region with the help of Islam. In the opinion of Mustafa Bakri, editor-in-chief of the Egyptian weekly newspaper Al Osboa, Iran wants the entire region to be Shia, and Turkey's ambitions go even further. "Sooner or later Iraq will become a Kurdistan, so we can only hope for the Arab unity. We adhere to the covenants of President Nasser. This primarily refers to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Gamal Abdel Nasser used to say: What was taken by force, can be returned only by force," stressed Bakri.
Culture:

Robert Sahakyants: I do what I love, it has never been otherwise

He was one of those without whom, in his opinion, everything would sink in sweet syrup.

September 25, 2009
A couple of years ago I had a chance of an interview with Robert Sahakyants and one could not assume at that time that he would leave the world so soon. We all knew he was ill, but no one suspected how serious the illness was. He was one of those without whom, in his opinion, everything would sink in sweet syrup. All that you'll read further are his direct words, as we thought no one could speak of Robert Sahakyants and the world surrounding him better than he himself. For some reason he always spoke Russian, although he knew his native language perfectly well. Call it freak of a genius if you like, but now that he is gone words, however beautiful they might be, are needless.
IT & Telecom:

How soon will Armenian Internet users have access to the benefits of global IT-accomplishments?

While the focus of the global IT sector is on the developments of unprecedented competition between information market giants Google and Microsoft, the Government of Armenia continues the discussions on the implementation of global projects on e-governmen

August 13, 2009
For the past month the focus of Internet-users and IT specialists around the world has been on three main events, namely the completion of the new operating system Windows 7 - the product of Microsoft Corporation, the release of the fast browser Chrome by Google and the work on our own operating system (OS).
Society:

Armenia celebrates the Holy Resurrection

The symbols of Easter in the old days were straw dolls Grandma Utis, mistress of the Armenian cuisine, and Grandpa Paz, who held in hands exactly 40 threads, a stone being tied at the end of each one.

April 11, 2009
On April 11, the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) begins to celebrate the Easter, one of the six patronal festivals. From sunset till late night all the churches of the Armenian Apostolic Church serve Liturgy that marks the end of Lent and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The celebration of the dead and resurrected god dates back to the ancient Egyptian religion, when the Egyptians celebrated the death and resurrection of God Osiris. Present Christian Easter takes its origin from the Old Testament. The old Jews celebrated the Passover (Pesach) as the holiday of exodus of Jews from Egypt.
 
---