Forty-thousand Yezidis that have found a refuge on the summit of the sacred mountain of Sinjar are looking into the eyes of death. This ancient sect of an ancient ethnicity for the first time in its millenials-old history is facing a total annihilation. A total annihilation indeed.
South Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal: a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, Washington, comments on the latest incidents on the Armenian-Azerbaijani front-line.
The next major station on the way is the summit in Riga in May 2015. Hopefully, at that point we will be able to confirm that further progress has been made and take new steps to develop our relation. Armenia has a committed partner in the EU – we are here for the long term.
A quarter century has passed since the devastating earthquake in Gyumri on December 7, 1988, however, 4,300 families still live in the same makeshifts they went into following the earthquake.
The economic development of the past years in Armenia has been mostly due to the mining industry as during the past five years the growth in this industry was almost doubled.
Besides analyzing the economic developments in 2013, the WB’s experts put down forecast for this and next year as well. The report forecasts that this year and in 2015 Armenia’s economic growth rate may be 5%. According to the WB, Armenia’s GDP per capita will be 3,752 dollars this year, and 4,110 next year.
The RA Supervisory Committee (SC) has published an annual report for 2013. The report includes a lot of violations, however, some of them are new due to their nature. These new findings concern offshore companies that misspent funds of the Armenian budget.
Tigran Sargsyan is well-known as an opponent to Armenia’s membership to the Union. However, he obeyed the decision of September 3 as a statesman. In order to be successful within the Customs Union it is necessary to get rid first of all of the internal opposition. If you want to get in the water make sure you swim, if not don’t go in there. Everything is clear.
The reasons of former PM Tigran Sargsyan’s resignation are not external factors. Armen Kharazyan, expert of international relations and former deputy Ambassador of Armenia to the United States, who resides in Washington now, shared this opinion with 168 Zham and added the United States was not involved in replacing Armenian Prime-Ministers and would not need it either.
In the first year of Tigran Sargsyan’s office (2008) Armenia’s GDP was 6.8%, which was lower by several points than the planned level. In 2009 as the economy was hit by the financial crisis the slump was 14.1%, followed by slow recovery. In 2010 there was 2.2% growth, in 2011 – 4.7%, and in 2012 – 7.2%. In 2013 the planned growth was 7% (as instructed by the president) but the real growth reached 3.5% only.
