Tag Archives: Armenia

Armenia to introduce graphic smoking disease pictures on cigarette packets

YEREVAN, JAN. 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The five member states of the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) are preparing to act on new rules that will mean they have to place graphic warnings about smoking on all cigarette packages.

Lawmakers have heralded the move as an important step towards deterring smoking but many people in the notoriously hard-smoking former Soviet Union think it is a pointless piece of bureaucratic self- indulgence.

In Yerevan, Armen Manvelyan, 32, drew hard on his cigarette. It was cold, and snow lay on the streets. Like many Armenian men, he had been smoking since school. All his attempts to quit had failed.

“I don’t think people realise that it is dangerous,” he said. “They just find it really hard to stop smoking. I haven’t see any awful photos on cigarette packs yet but surely they are not going to stop me.”

InRussia the new regulations regarding cigarette packaging have already come into force but Armenia has until November 2017 to enforce them.

From then, cigarette packets will carry photos of smoke-affected organs and the names of diseases linked to smoking.

Smoking is part of Armenia’s culture. According to Alexander Bazarchian, director of the state’s National Institute of Health half of all men smoke and every year 4,000 people die of smoking-related diseases.

Mr Bazarchian said that the new EEU directive was important.

“Using photos of smoke-affected organs is an internationally proved practice to reduce the number of smokers,” he said.

The Armenian health ministry welcomed the reforms and there have already been a number of moves to cut down on the popularity of smoking. This has included banning cigarette advertising and banning smoking in many buildings and areas.

Importantly, though, in many restaurants and bars, where there is no mandatory ban, the air is thick with cigarette smoke. The EEU and Armenian officials want to change this.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Enterprise signs car rental franchise deal with Georgia and Armenia

JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — US car rental company Enterprise, which owns the Enterprise, Alamo and National brands, said it had made a franchise deal with Yerevan- based TravelCar. The deal will expand the brands to Armenia and also to neighbouring Georgia. The deal is part of a global drive by Enterprise to spread its business across the Middle East and Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f

Armenia opens up to Russia

JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting increasingly tight ties between Armenia and Russia, Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan ordered his government to start preparing processes that would allow Russians to enter Armenia on their internal passports, essentially an ID document. This, potentially, opens up Armenia a holiday destination to the millions of Russians who don’t hold an international passport. Surrounded by its enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia is reliant on Russia for military, economic and energy ties.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f

Armenia bans Iranian chicken imports

JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia has banned chicken imports from six regions of Iran because of an outbreak of bird flu, media reported. Trade between Iran and Armenia has increased rapidly over the past few years meaning that the ban will hit chicken supplies in Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f

Armenian PM flies to Moscow

JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan flew to Moscow for a series of meetings, including with Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev, designed to underline just how close relations between the two countries are. Armenia has been compared, by some analysts as a Russian vassal state, reliant on it for trade, military and energy cooperation. This was Mr Karapetyan’s first visit to Russia as PM. He has close personal ties with Russia and previously used to work for Gazprom Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

One soldier killed, says Azerbaijan’s minister

JAN. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s defence minister said that one of its soldiers had been killed in a skirmish with Armenia- backed forces around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Tension has been rising around Nagorno-Karabakh. Last year several dozen soldiers were killed on both sides in the worst fighting since a 1994-brokered ceasefire ended a war in which an estimated 30,000 people died.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Armenia’s inflationary data shows price drop

JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Inflation data from Armenia’s national statistics office showed prices dropped in 2016 by an average of 1.1%, media reported. The largest fall was in food prices which fell 3.3%. Service prices rose by 1.1%. Deflation has been stalking Armenia for sometime, indicating an economic slowdown.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Armenian aviation numbers grow

JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport reported passenger growth of 10.4% in 2016 compared to 2015, media reported. It said that just over 2.1m people had used Armenia’s main airport without giving a reason for the rise.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)f

Armenian oligarch Tsarukyan plots political comeback for parliamentary election

YEREVAN, JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three months before a parliamentary election in Armenia, Gagik Tsarukyan, a millionaire arm-wrestler, said he was going to return to politics and head the country’s second largest political party — the Prosperous Armenia party.

Mr Tsarukyan’s political come- back is important because changes to the constitution, due to come into force in 2018 when President Serzh Sargsyan steps down, mean power is shifting from the presidential office to the parliament. Parliament, and its composition, after April’s election will govern the country.

In a broadcast on his Kentron TV channel, Mr Tsarukyan, 60, said he was returning to Prosperous Armenia, the party he set up, because of the poor state of the economy.

“Since my decision to leave the political arena, there has been no political figure that has been able to fill my role,” he said. “I would have refrained from returning to politics if I were certain that our country was headed in the right direction.”

In a parliamentary election in 2012, the Republican party won 69 of the 131 seats and Prosperous Armenia won 37. The rest were split between four other parties.

Two years ago Mr Tsarukyan, who owns businesses spanning alcohol production to diamond cutting and dealing, quit politics after arguing with Mr Sargsyan over the constitutional changes.

But analysts now say his return may be designed to bolster the ruling party’s power in parliament rather than to present any real opposition.

Richard Giragosian, director at the Regional Studies Center in Yerevan, said politics in Armenia is personality driven and that Mr Tsarukyan was able to appeal to a constituent that would not vote for the Republicans.

“Tsarukyan’s role in the coming elections will be very much to capture votes from people who would ordinarily vote for the opposition,” he said.

Styopa Safaryan, head of the Armenian Institute of the International and Security Affairs, agreed.

“Tsarukyan’s return is more a challenge for Armenia’s opposition party’s rather than current leadership and the Republican party,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Armenia creates economic zone with Iran

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia has created a so-called special economic zone on the border with Iran to try and boost trade with its neighbour. Announcing the deal, deputy economy minister Hovhannes Azizyan said that it was important to keep on building ties with Iran and that he hoped the SEZ would become a regional hub. Armenia and Iran have built up close trade links over the past few years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)