JUNE 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – More and more ethnic Armenian refuges from Syria are fleeing to Armenia, Hranush Hakobyan, minister for diaspora, said. Thousands of Armenians had lived in Syria. Many fled after the start of a civil war. Ms Hakobyan said there were now 13,000 in Armenia.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia confirmed it will send a team to the inaugural European Games in Baku next month. Azerbaijan and Armenia are officially at war over the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh, now controlled by Armenia-backed forces. Some athletes wanted to boycott the event.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan said the IMF and EBRD’s forecast of negative economic growth this year were wrong and that he still expected the economy to grow slightly.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s government said it would privatise the national post office group Haypost, potentially setting up one of the biggest sales of state assets this year.
One of the overriding reasons behind the sale is to modernise Haypost and its 900 branches around the country, Arman Sahakyan, head of the statement, said.
“With the help of investments we expect to modernize physical infrastructures, to restore around 250 post offices, to purchase mobile post vehicles, which will serve all Armenian communities including those 250 communities where there are no post offices at the moment. Transportation means will also be renovated, post-boxes will be placed at all 750,000 registered addresses of Armenia,” media quoted Mr Sahakyan as saying.
The Armenian government is under increased pressure to rebuff a worsening economic outlook.
Haypost, which is in desperate need of modernisation has been a prime candidate to attract an investor to buy it from the government and update the service.
The Armenian state wholly owns Haypost, although in 2006 it handed the management of the company over to a company registered in the Netherlands but owned by Argentinean-Armenian businessman Eduardo Eurnekian. It’s unclear from reports if Mr Eurnekian will be involved in the privatisation.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s official Muslim group, the Assembly of Muslims of Armenia, has created the position of chief mufti for the first time, online media reported.
Importantly, it gave the top job to an Iranian trained cleric, Arsen Safaryan.
Regional analyst Paul Goble wrote in his blog that there were a handful of reasons why this was an important development.
The first reason, he said, was that the new job challenges the Baku-based Muslim Special Directorate of the Caucasus. Azerbaijan is a Muslim country and the natural location for a regional Muslim chief.
Mr Globe then wrote: “This move gives Iran an opening to expand its influence among Shiia not only in the post- Soviet space, also a direct challenge to Azerbaijan, but also among the nearly 400,000 Armenian Muslims (the Hemshins) living in the Middle East and Europe and also among the Yezidis who vastly outnumber the Shiia in Armenia.”
There were, Mr Globe explained, thousands of Muslims living in Armenia but most fled to Azerbaijan in the 1990s after war over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out. There are now only around 1,000 Muslims in Armenia.
Iran and Armenia have been steadily improving ties over the past few years. They are both short of regional allies. Now, it appears, Armenia could be quietly handing more responsibility for Armenia’s small Muslim community over to Iran.
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)
MAY 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Less than two years after Armenia appeared to turn its back on the EU by agreeing to sign up to the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union, the EU wants to start negotiating a new treaty to deepen political and economic ties with Yerevan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quoted an unnamed official in Brussels as saying.
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)
MAY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it had agreed a €3.5m, 15-year loan with Armenia to build the country’s first EU-compliant landfill site. The EU has also agreed a €3.5m grant for the project.
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)
MAY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Consumer prices in Armenia rose by 5% in the first four months of the year, media reported quoting the National Statistics Agency. This rise represented a steady, but not alarming, price inflation.
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)
MAY 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Cigarette production in Armenia is booming, media reported quoting official statistics. In Q1 of 2015, cigarette production in Armenia increased by 28.4% compared to the same period in 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MAY 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s government scrubbed the Armenian flag from a photo posted on its website of a parade in Moscow to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union, media reported. Azerbaijan and Armenia are still officially at war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)