Political week in Armenia began with a four-day parliamentary sitting. “Turkish authorities, signing a document and making statements contradicting the latter, can’t be taken seriously,” NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan told a news conference in Yerevan. According to him, such actions show that Turkish authorities disrespect both themselves and the agreements made. “As to ratification of the Protocols, let me repeat that we discussed the issue with our coalition partners and stick to the position already announced: Armenian parliament will take no further steps until Turkey ratifies the Protocols,” Abrahamyan emphasized.

Celebrated over 27 years, March 15, World Consumer Rights Day was marked in 2010 under “Our money -our rights” motto. On a level with 180 public and state organizations from 72 countries of the world in charge of consumer rights issues, Armenian National Association of Consumers has been supporting activities of World Consumer Organization (CI) for 12 years.

Let us leave aside the comments and hailstorm of fury on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statement about “deportation of 100 thousand illegal immigrants from Armenia”. Any move of a politician, especially one like Erdogan, pursues a certain goal; in this particular case we can assume it is as much directed to the Armenian Diaspora as it is for domestic use. However, Erdogan could not expect such a sharp reaction across the world, including Turkey.

The first sitting of the Board of trustees at Venetian center for Armenian culture studies was scheduled for Saturday, March 13. Armenian Minister of Culture, Hasmik Poghosyan left on a working visit to Italy to participate in a sitting. The sitting focused on further activities of the center, RA Ministry of Culture press service reported.

Boxing: On Saturday night at the Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage, California, Darchinyan did his part to keep the hopes for rematch with Filipino Nonito Donaire alive, boxing to a commanding unanimous decision win over 22-year old challenger Rodrigo Guerrero (13-2-1, 9 KO) of Mexico City, Mexico.

The government announced plans to connect most of Armenia’s general and secondary schools to the internet and join them into a unified network by 2011. The director of National Center for Educational Technologies Areg Grigoryan said 624 schools are already connected to the world wide web with plans pending to connect 750 more schools to the internet once work on building the dedicated network is completed as part of a World Bank funded project.

February 15 is International Childhood Cancer Day. New cases of cancer in Armenia account for 7000 annually, including about 100 children under 15. The figure is terrifying, although they don’t differ much from the world statistics. Cancer is a very insidious disease without marked initial symptoms. In most cases, the latent period of the disease is durable and it can hardly be detected in the initial stage.