Armenian News

ARMENIA AGAIN AMONG 'NOT FREE' IN FREEDOM HOUSE REPORT
Tert.am
16:00 ~U 29.04.10

A Washington-based international non-governmental organization Freedom
House has released its 2010 report on freedom of press in which the
countries are classified as "free," "partially free" and "not free."

Armenia is among those states "not free" side by side with Cameroon,
Côte d'Ivoire, Marroco, Katar, Azerbaïdjan and Iran.

However, Freedom House has registered some improvements in Armenia.

"We see a reduction of censorship in Armenia and Moldova, as well as
a decrease of control over news reports," reads the report.

Though Armenia has improved the situation over freedom of media by
two points (now it is 66 points while last year it was 68), it has
nevertheless remained in the same group.

Of the three countries in the South Caucasus only Georgia has been
included among "partially free" states.

The report includes 196 states of which 35% have a "free" press, 33%
has "partially free" press and 32% - "not free."

The list of the states that have "free" press are Finland, Iceland,
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Andorra, Swiss.

Among "not free" states are Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Eritrea,
Libya, Burma, Turkmenistan and North Korea.

HEAD OF ARMENIAN CHURCH PAYS LANDMARK VISIT TO TRADITIONAL

ENEMY AZERBAIJAN
BYLINE: Lilit Gevorgyan
World Markets Research Centre
Global Insight
April 28 2010

The leader of Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II, made
an unprecedented trip to neighbouring Azerbaijan which remains in a
low-intensity war with Armenia. During his trip to the Azerbaijani
capital Baku, Garegin II met with Azeri president Ilham Aliyev and
the country's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric, Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur
Pashazade. The two-day visit, 26- 27 April, was to take part in a
world religious summit that convened in Baku. Garegin II discussed
with Azerbaijan's political and religious leaders the future of
the conflict over the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region,
which has been essentially independent for the past 20 years. He
urged all parties to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict,
thus expressing his opposition to Aliyev's repeated calls to restart
the war with Armenia to claw back the breakaway region. Garegin II
held a mass in the abandoned 19th-century Armenian St. Gregory the
Illuminator's Church in Baku, which was seriously damaged after an
arson attack a few years ago.

Significance:The visit by the Armenian Church leader is the first
high-profile Armenian visit to Azerbaijan since the outbreak of war
over Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988, which claimed some 30,000 lives. The
visit is an exception to the background of worsening hostile
Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. While the protracted political talks
mediated by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) are making unsatisfactory progress, Garegin II's visit may
be the beginning of "track two" diplomacy. The Armenian Church
leader has already launched the restoration of the Azeri mosque
in Nagorno-Karabakh. The initiative is to facilitate lower-level
dialogue between Armenians and Azeris and try to quell high-level
animosity and mistrust between the two neighbours. As the first
official Christian church in the world, the Armenian Apostolic Church
has long been involved in the global ecumenical movement promoting
peace in hot spots such as the Middle East. Bringing this drive to
Armenian-Azeri relations is welcome news and certainly a boost to the
track two diplomacy advocated by some Armenian and Azeri journalistic
and youth groups.

RFE/RL Report
Improved Tax Collection Eases Armenian Budget Deficit
29.04.2010
Emil Danielyan

The Armenian government's tax revenues jumped by nearly 20 percent in
the first quarter of this year, slashing the state budget deficit to a
level equivalent to just over 1 percent of GDP, the Ministry of
Finance said on Thursday.


The latest fiscal data is a further sign that the Armenia is emerging
from its first major economic downturn since the early 1990s. Renewed
economic growth in the country accelerated from January through March,
resulting in a first-quarter GDP increase of 5.5 percent.

A budget deficit of 6 billion drams ($15.6 million) recorded during
this period was well below almost 35 billion drams projected by the
government late last year. The figure puts the government on trackto
meet a full-year deficit target of 193.5 billion drams set in the 2010
state budget.

The government's budgetary revenues plummeted in 2009 amid a
double-digit decline in economic activity resulting from the global
economic crisis. The government needed hundreds of millions of dollars
in emergency loans from abroad to avoid significant cuts in public
spending. The deficit-to-GDP ratio exceeded 5 percent as a result.

Improved tax collection has significantly eased the fiscal imbalance
since then. According to the Ministry of Finance, the State Revenue
Committee (SRC) collected 127.1 billion drams in various taxes in the
first quarter of 2010, up by 19 percent year on year and about 10
billion drams more than was projected.

The figure also slightly exceeds the government's tax revenue in the
first quarter of 2008. The Armenian economy was still expanding at
double-digit rates at the time.

Increased proceeds from value-added tax, the largest source of the
country's budgetary revenues, were primarily responsible for the
gain. The ministry also reported strong gains in the collection of
other key taxes.

The latest tax data comes on the heels of strong criticism of the
Armenian tax authority voiced by Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian. He
complained earlier this month that tax evasion among large companies
remains widespread and that the SRC has failed to tackle the problem
in earnest. He stressed the need for a tougher government crackdown on
the practice.

Sarkisian criticized the SRC in event stronger terms on April 15,
accusing it of harassing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and
being far more lenient towards larger firms suspected of grossly
underreporting their revenues. He was particularly unhappy with a 2009
upsurge in the SRC's controversial inspections of various businesses.

SRC data shows that the national gas distribution company, ARG,
remains Armenia's number one corporate taxpayer, having paid 5.24
billion drams in various taxes in the first quarter of 2010. ARG is
followed by the Aleks-Grig company of government-linked businessman
Samvel Aleksanian, which enjoys a de facto monopoly on imports of
sugar, flour and other basic foodstuffs.

The country's leading taxpayers also include fuel-importing,
telecommunication and energy firms.

ARMENIAN COMPOSER'S MUSIC PLAYED IN TURKISH PARLIAMENT

FIRST TIME
Tert.am
14:51 ~U 29.04.10

A peace of music by an Armenian composer Sargis Effendi was for the
first time in the history of the Turkish state played in the Grand
National Assembly of Turkey.

According to local Turkish daily Milliyet the "strange and surprising"
even took place on April 28 during a break of the parliamentary
session.

The peace written by Sargis Effendi was aired by the parliamentary TV
screens in the corridors and could be heard through the loudspeakers
there.

Further the paper mentiones that till today only peaces of Western
composers, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
have been played in the Turkish parliament.

An Armenian national, Sargis Effendi was born in 1885 in Turkey and
lived and created his peaces in Turkey. In 1930 he moved to Paris
with his family and passed away there in 1944.