2019 February 22
Anti-Corruption Daily
Anti-Corruption 2/22/19
by ar_david_hh
All the accused are innocent until proven guilty by the court of law. Currency in Armenian Drams unless specified otherwise.
NSS boss said they caught a Food Safety State Service official while taking a bribe. We have more details. Several employees were involved, including the chief of the Shirak department, who is now told not to leave the country after being charged. They allegedly closed the eye on unsanitary conditions and transportation violations by food centers, in exchange for bribes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guW5w4OuwsQ
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/155316
Deputy military commissar of Gegharquniq has been arrested for bribery and abuse of power, after NSS caught him while accepting a $1,000 bribe he took to declare a healthy recruit as unfit for military.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG98dQAFLaY
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/155294
IRS has begun inviting singers and show business workers to its headquarters to help them prepare to begin paying taxes. Several producers showed up.
The agency notified few months earlier that tax paying practice was poor among show business stars, and it would begin to enforce the laws beginning April 20. The agency will issue them Tax IDs proving that they paid taxes, because they don't get paid with regular paychecks from which the taxes can be deducted.
IRS will also tax diaspora Armenian performers who travel to Armenia for a concert and receive a revenue from Armenian tickets sales.
Gyumri state-run kids' boxing school director is charged with a felony embezzlement of 23mln by falsifying employment records between 2013-2018.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/965222.html
The Justice Ministry has proposed a change in law to provide 2 months of social aid to prisoners who are just released from the detention, so they can find a job and reduce the likelihood of a repeated crime.
http://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/265771/
Armenian police will begin installing cameras and audio recorders in interrogation rooms as part of a humanitarian project partially funded by UNESCO, meant to reduce detainee abuse. The pilot program will begin from 10 police stations.
Artsakh army denies the Azeri reports that they shut down an Armenian drone in Aghdam region. The images provided by the Azeri side showed an older incident. The fake news was circulated now, because OCSE was supposed to conduct a border monitoring on that day, says the army.
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/155252
Ministry of Nature Protection has proposed a law to ban free non-reusable plastic shopping bag handouts in markets. The bags will need to be sold beginning June, 2019. Beginning 2020 there will be a new tax on it. No sales permitted after 2022.
Some supermarkets have been charging 10 Drams for a bag for a while now.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/965239.html
Environmental activist Levon Galstyan says Lydian Armenia is misleading the public with its claims that Amulsar road shutdown and checks are the reason why they are losing a projected revenue, and are unable to prevent the nearby melting snow water from being spoiled.
Here is the environmentalist's opinion:
"Lydian received a license to dig gold on 2009. They stopped the extraction on 2010 due to their internal problems.
The government re-approved their license on 2012 and 2014. The Lydian then failed to build the necessary pipes to extract. The government did not ask them why they weren't working.
On 2017, they announced that they'll be ready to extract by the Spring of 2018. This means they expected the water drain pipe constructions and their own environmental checks to be finished by then.
However, they never finished building the necessary projects, yet they claim that they are losing revenue and can't clean up the waters because of a road shutdown by activists that took place long after the date they were supposed to be ready.
On 2018, before the roads were closed, Lydian already announced that they needed $50mln more to continue their work because of certain problems."
https://factor.am/127034.html ----- http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/155317
....
Lydian Armenia disputes the claims, says 80% of water pipes are build. Environmentalists don't believe those numbers written in papers, saying that the previous government never checked to verify any of it, and also Lydian ignored the demands of nearby residents.
Lydian says the delays with their work was due to them conducting environmental research to comply with law, which were changed while the study was being done, which prompted a new research, which ended on 2016.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRChlMQ_X9Q
Education Ministry will split the future school books into multiple volumes so the kids won't have to carry a heavy load. Backpack weight will be cut in half, says Araik Harutyunyan.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/965203.html
Education Ministry and grandmaster Smbat Lputyan want to address the complaints around the chess classes (taught between 2-4 grades) in schools.
Studies conducted since 2012 show that kids who took the classes ended up performing overall better in school, than those who didn't take the classes. Lputyan says this was the goal of the implementation on 2012.
Most complaints are about teachers not being familiar with the materials that needs to be taught, grades being too low, and parents being unable to help kids with homework.
1278 parents participated in a survey. 70% think chess helps their kid. 38% of kids are able to solve chess homework independently. 29% of parents can't help kids with homework because they themselves don't know chess well. Some parents want the classes to begin from the 3rd grade.
Only 4 parents wanted chess to be removed from the curriculum. Chess was on the top 3 list of favorite subjects by kids.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/965264.html
Offshore king Mihran Poghosyan's (being investigated) Ketrin Group business has not been doing well. It is facing legal bankruptcy after a business partner sued it for a 25mln debt.
The prosecutors will challenge the Lower court verdict, which approved the arrest of several participants of Partez restaurant deadly brawl but denied the arrest of a former MP Melik Manukyan's son and 8 others. They want all 9 to be detained. 19 people are charged.
The MP's son and his friends got into an argument with Dodi Gago's son's buddies in a gas station, which evolved into a deadly fight later.
https://hetq.am/hy/article/101143
Drama Alert!
Ejmiatsin mayor, who was elected last year replacing Manvel Grigoryan's son, will sue a Facebook user for an alleged defamation and false information, seeking an apology and compensation which she plans to donate to kindergartens.
Screenshot : http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/155253
Foreign workers in Armenia. There are 4,600 of them (0.8% of workers). Civilnet reports that the process which lets foreigners find a job in Armenia is flawed.
Before accepting a foreigner to work, the employer has to take his passport to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
For most foreign workers, they are still in their home countries when they look for a job in Armenia. This means the worker has to send his real passport to Armenia, have the employer take care of papers, then receive the passport back through mail, then use it to travel to Armenia. It is suggested to accept the photo-copies of passports instead.
If the employer wants a foreign worker, it must contact the corresponding government agency tasked with labor search, which has to send the employer the list of available foreign workers within 5 days. It is proposed to make the time-frame 10 days.
Few other proposed reforms to prevent situations when a worker will arrive then find himself jobless and money-less.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4twSz9con0
Defense Ministry says there is an interest towards the Armenian military equipment presented during the recent IDEX military expo held in Adu Dhabi 🍿. This was the first time Armenia participated in it.
Armenian weapons were: "Electro-optic countermeasure system 3K01 Pancratic sniper sight 3*9 Sniper Rifle K-8 Thermal imaging gunner sight for T72A tank Inductive mine detector RIA-1 Bulletproof vest GS-47/0717 Various types of reconnaissance UAVs, all in final stages of development, with proven technologies Military and tactical boots MJ-25 sectoral search semi-stationary VHF radar (Model 1:10) Microwave transistor amplifier for target detection HFAS-75G"
https://armenpress.am/eng/news/964531
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/965137.html
Russian Komsersant writes that Pashinyan has refused to accept the Belarus representative as the new CSTO military chief for the remainder of 2019, which is when the Armenia's term is supposed to expire.
Russian FM says there are "no operational issues or frustrations" in the bloc. The Russian delegation is temporarily leading it until 2020.
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/155254
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/965234.html
Russian Nezovisimaya Gazeta writes that Pashinyan and Aliyev are preparing their nations for peace. The paper notes that anti-Armenian rhetoric within Azerbaijan has significantly decreased in recent times, while Armenian FM issued press credentials to an Azeri journalist from Turan agency who visited Yerevan.
http://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/155261
The Turan journalist who visited Armenia has written several articles about it. FIP says he misreported several facts.
FIP: Hajiyev cannot accept the fact that Turkish authorities organized and killed up to 1.5mln people, so he tries to find "reasons" behind it. For example, he asks whether Armenians living in Turkey were supporting Russians, and whether a nation (Turkey) had the right to defend itself. By doing so, Hajiyev denies the historical fact and puts the genocide blame on the civilian victims themselves.
This is on-par with the Turkish position. They also present the Van defense battle out of context, and as a rebellion, to justify the military actions by Turks.
The author does, however, say that even if Van was a rebellion, that would not have given Turks the right to kill civilians.
Hajiyev was also complaining that Armenians were presenting a few allegedly Azeri historical monuments and buildings as Iranian. Example, the Blue Mosque in Yerevan. It was built on the 18th century by Iranian Nader Shah when Armenia was part of Iran, in the form of Yerevan Khanate. The Khanate had Iranian, Kurdish, Azeri and Armenian population. It is inaccurate to refer to the Mosques as Azeri.
Another monument that Hajiyev believes is Azeri, is Karakoyunlu (translated: black sheep) monument, dedicated to Turkmen Oghuz leaders. Turkmen delegation was present during its restoration ceremony on 2002 in capital Yerevan. The monument was first built 600 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Kara_Koyunlu_emirs
The author also attempted to portray a big division between Armenia and Artsakh. For example, Pashinyan and Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan who is from Artsakh. Author said Karapetyan refused to attend Pashinyan's swearing-in ceremony, but it's unclear what he meant because there is no such ceremony in which guests are invited in the old fashion. Pashinyan formed a new ceremony during which only Ministers and the PM are present during the pledge. There used to be a big ceremony back when Armenia was a presidential country.
(What the author probably meant is that several Kremlin-loyal Russian-Armenian businessmen expressed dissatisfaction with Kremlin ally Kocharyan being arrested, and some "redundant" government-funded foundations run by them being shut down by Pashinyan, so they expressed dissatisfaction, which later subsided down with one of the businessman expressing his support and investments under the new government.)
(FIP link contains 6 links to Hajiyev articles)
Artsakh capital Stepanakert will have 500 new 2-3-4 bedroom apartments by 2020. It'll be targeted towards middle class citizens, who will be able to buy with subsidies from the government and private donors. Families with more kids will have more discounts and lower interest rates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP6FOFAujY8
Թըըըշվառ աաաանտեեեեր Հաաաայաաաաստաաան. People are split whether they want the anthem to be changed.
https://youtu.be/pBR7QQxH8O0?t=25
......
Աաաազաատ անկաաախխ Սիիիմոոնյաաաան
MP Alen Simonyan, who stirred the topic of the anthem being changed, is officially annoyed by all of you. He wants you to stop discussing the anthem change. Says he only proposed it to have a brief public discussion with no specific legislation, but it turned into a 24/7 badgering for him.
Turkish-Armenian MP Garo Paylan speaks in Western Armenian during a mini-Majlis session. (calls for minorities including Armenians to feel free to use their native languages)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAnkCsKLexc
Link to original report: https://www.reddit.com/r/armenia/comments/atqh0d/anticorruption_22219/
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