After joining the Customs Union prices for many products in Armenia will increase. This will affect mainly products that are imported from non-CU countries. For most products imported from third countries the customs fee is maximum 10%, which is considered low. According to the policy of the CU, customs fees are much higher than what Armenia has now.
It turns out that Angela Merkel, who has occupied the position of Chancellor of Germany since November 21, 2005, has visited Armenia at least twice during her college years. This is not mentioned in her official bio. But there are people, who have met Merkel in Yerevan in 1973-74 and even spent a whole day with her. In her bio she mentions that in 1973 she was enrolled in the physics department of Leipzig University.
There is a debate going on about the potential skyrocketing of prices for certain types of products in Armenia after joining the Customs Union.
Today is the 22nd anniversary of Armenia’s army, which is celebrated in conditions of unprecedented skirmish activation at the border. This fact makes people to relate to the celebration of the army day more seriously.
If you look at it from an Azerbaijani perspective, these incidents are one of the main ways that Azerbaijan has to challenge the status quo, and to keep the conflict on the international agenda. So there is a kind of rationality to it, for the party that is unhappy with the status quo and doesn’t see alternatives for changing the situation in other ways.
If Vladimir Gasparyan decides to follow the example of incumbent mayor Taron Margaryan and ex mayor Gagik Beglaryan and pursues doctor’s status in sciences, he will do better than anyone else in Human Relations topic. In his thesis the police chief can refer to his example and as an experiment assert that hundreds of replacements within a system do not change the quality of the system.
I think Russia has won this round, but it’s not the end of the game, because the end of the game is years, years on! Russia often wins victories, and, quite honestly, it is one victory on Armenia and a one very big victory in Ukraine right not. But it’s not the end of the game, it’s just the second or the third round and there’s seven more rounds to go. That is credit to president Putin for his tactics and credit to Russia for its determination and conviction.
“Tomorrow I am leaving for Paris, where I will meet with co-chairmen, and the next day I will meet with the Azeri foreign minister Mamediarov,” said Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandyan in yesterday’s press conference. In fact this announcement is no news because we knew that the foreign ministers were going to meet on January 24. Other statements the Armenian foreign minister made were no news either.
I think that it is only up to the Armenian political elite to decide who will be Armenia’s president or prime minister. Moscow can be for or against something but I don’t think that this position can be decisive. It is a fact that Kocharyan was a predictable counterpart for Russia – first for Yeltsin and later for Putin. Many issues were decided due to personal contacts. However this does not mean that everyone is for Kocharyan’s appointment. Currently the situation in Armenia is very dangerous as any change in the status-quo situation may be fatal.
Electronic media spread information, according to which the employees of Russian companies in Armenia were internally assigned to take part in the protest rally against the new pension reform. It is hard to tell how many of the rally participants were from Russian companies but this fact is important not only in light of the protest against the pension reform but also in the political context.
