In an editorial on the start of a new academic year in Armenia, “Zhamanak” claims that Armenian public schools have degenerated into an “institution serving a vicious system that has taken hold in the country.” “In essence, school principals and teaching personnel have become appendages to government structures, acting as an important element of administrative resources for the regime’s reproduction,” says the paper. “This has become the main mission of the schooling system in Armenia.”
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” ridicules Artak Davtian, a parliament deputy from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), for portraying President Serzh Sarkisian’s constitutional reform as a divine “temple that will serve our people and our country.” “So they now call Serzh Sarkisian’s efforts to prolong his rule a temple,” comments the paper highly critical of the current Armenian leadership. “By the same token, the authorities conducted an operation ‘Temple’ against the people in March 2008. It was on a road to the temple that Serzh Sarkisian declared in 2013 that he will ‘secure’ as many votes as he wants.” “Serzh Sarkisian has tried hard to serve the people, but nothing has worked out because the constitution is too old,” it adds mockingly. “He will now change the constitution and we all will head to the temple.”
Citing official statistics, “Haykakan Zhamanak” reports that foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Armenian economy totaled $65 million in the first half of this year, sharply down from $180 million in the same period in 2014.The paper says that the sharp drop was registered in virtually all sectors of the economy. It recalls earlier government assurances that FDI inflows will rise after Armenia’s accession to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in January 2015. “Actually the opposite has happened,” it says, adding that a fall in first-half foreign investment from Russia was particularly drastic.
“Zhoghovurd” speculates that Russia is very concerned about the possibility of large-scale energy projects between the European Union and Iran, which will be opened by the upcoming lifting of international sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic. The paper claims that Moscow could scuttle them by destabilizing the situation in the South Caucasus and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone in particular. It links Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s unexpected trip to Baku with that alleged effort.
(Tigran Avetisian)