2018 October 23

Anti-Corruption Daily

Anti-Corruption Oct/23/2018: President won’t sign the counter-revolution bill, sends it to Supremes. Six school directors and a mayor facing charges. More below...
by ar_david_hh

All the accused are innocent until proven guilty by the court of law. Currency in Armenian Drams unless specified otherwise.

6 school directors in Lori province are facing criminal charges for abuse of power, embezzlement, document forgery, issuing diplomas to students who didn’t attend classes, registering non-existent people as employees to embezzle salaries, giving bribes to politicians for favorable rulings regarding the school, asking money from staff with fraudulent excuses. The prosecutor has contacted the governor with a request to take actions to reform the schools http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146874

Ministry of Education says they’ve changed the tests that the school directorial candidates have to submit. As a result, most candidates have failed at the first stage of hiring, showing a poor training. The tests will no longer be overlooked http://panarmenian.net/m/arm/news/261447

3 criminal cases are launched against the former major of Berqaber for corruption, embezzlement, forgery. Some of the charges were made after the municipality’s secretary contacted the authorities after finding irregularities https://hetq.am/hy/article/97430

President Sarkissian has refused to sign the October 2nd’s counter-revolutionary bill, and sends it to the Constitutional Court instead. It may take months for a ruling to be made and the law signed (if found valid by Supremes), and by then, the Parliamentary elections could be over on December, thus canceling HHK/BHK/ARF attempt to delay the upcoming elections. The bill seeks to allow the Parliament to permanently delay a Prime Minister selection vote in the event of MPs being unable to come to work, while the Constitution says they have 14 days to vote. HHK has argued that it isn’t unconstitutional. https://news.am/arm/news/477378.html

Sunday’s local municipal elections across the country have not been challenged or recounted by any party http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146869

MPs are gathering votes to start another session on October 29th to try and pass the Electoral Code reform again. BHK says their missing 4 MPs will make it this time. Yesterday, the vote failed due to most of HHK members’ no-show sabotage. Only 6 of them voted in favor. http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146822

Parliament speaker HHK Babloyan, who voted against the bill, says there are at least 67 MPs who have agreed to support the bill (63 are required). 35 have signed a petition to initiate the second voting on October 29th. He welcomes the second voting session and an attempt to give the missing MPs the opportunity to vote http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146838

QP has nominated Nikol Pashinyan for Prime Minister. The vote may take place tomorrow. It is expected that he won’t be elected as part of the agreed-upon framework to dissolve the Parliament. http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146845

ARF MP cries during her speech. Says one party should not have enough votes to write laws (about QP possibly winning 66%), because they could legalize weed, gay marriage, or give Artsakh to Azerbaijan. To prevent this, the MP says people should not give QP “too many” mandates https://youtu.be/jAXbg8kK9kY

Press F to become gay and continue to read....

Eurasian forum continues in Yerevan.

Several Russian-Armenian businessmen have agreed to make investments in bordering villages to improve the infrastructure and farming https://armenpress.am/arm/news/951968.html

...Rudi Giuliani spoke about cyber-security cooperation between US-Eurasia-Armenia. Says there isn’t any established cooperation yet. He reminded all participants to update their McAfee antivirus and never click on emails offering Life Alert for a 10% discount (/s). http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146859

... He earlier said “The Armenian Genocide should not be forgotten because to do so is to make possible similar horrific acts of terror in our era and in the future. The recognition of this Genocide will help prevent such inhumanities in the future. God bless the souls of all who died and may they Rest In Peace with God.” https://imgur.com/a/8AdmO1Q

Armenia spends AMD 8.4bln a year on prisoners. That’s more than what it takes to train high-tech students. However, the incarceration rates are low - comparable to Luxembourg, Austria and Spain - twice lower than in Georgia and Azerbaijan. http://panarmenian.net/m/arm/details/261419

Students score the highest grades in English and Biology exams. Last year it was English and Russian. The native language scores are noticeably lower, but the number of students who failed that test has gone down significantly http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146374

The drinking water at two Armavir military outposts is tested for harmful materials. Both results came normal. The pipes were replaced last year https://hetq.am/hy/article/97429

Armen Grigoryan wins Silver in youth weightlifting world championship http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146825

Isabella Caylyan wins bronze in youth weightlifting world championship http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146858

Rafik Hovhanisyan wins silver in European youth weightlifting http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146878

Baku is sending a note of protest to France after the mayor of French Saint-Etienne city had visited Artsakh Republic on Sunday. The mayor will be added to the Azeri Black List. http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/146897

Russia wants Armenia and other EEU partners to pay for gas in Rubles, as an attempt to reduce Russia’s reliance on the US Dollar https://news.am/arm/news/477354.html

In a massive win for US, Germany has agreed to invest €500mln to create a liquid gas facility to purchase American gas, as a replacement to Russian. Poland has already begun the imports, while Italy is watching. This may eventually put an end to Russia’s gas dominance in Europe. https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-win-for-trump-merkel-changes-course-on-u-s-gas-imports-1540209647

Link to original report: https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/9qspja/anticorruption_oct232018_president_wont_sign_the/