ARMENIAN PRESIDENT INAUGURATED, GOVERNMENT INSTALLED.

Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosian was inaugurated yesterday to a second term of five years. The act prejudged the decision due shortly from the Constitutional Court, which is now examining the united opposition’s case against official fraud in the September 22 presidential election. Those proceedings went unmentioned at yesterday’s presidential inauguration. Of the opposition parliamentary groups, only the Communists attended the ceremony. The nonCommunist opposition, forbidden to operate, also boycotted local elections that were held on November 10 amid distrust of the integrity of the process. (Interfax, November 11)

The president has formed a new cabinet of ministers under Prime Minister Armen Sarkisian, comprised of 23 members, 8 of them new. Aleksandr Arzumanian, formerly ambassador to the UN, replaces Vahan Papazian as foreign minister; Papazian described himself as overworked in his last interview in office. The Ministries of Internal Affairs and State Security have been merged into a superministry to be headed by Serge Sarkisian, hitherto security minister. The controversial internal affairs minister, Vano Siradeghian, was appointed mayor of Yerevan by the president. The former Armenian Communist party’s First Secretary, Vladimir Movsisian, and the former Armenian Komsomol’s First Secretary, Hranush Hagopian, have been appointed agriculture minister and social welfare minister, respectively. Ter-Petrosian and Armen Sarkisian listed the government’s priorities as enforcing law and order, strengthening the army, combating corruption, channeling domestic commercial capital into production, encouraging foreign investment, and improving relations with the Armenian diaspora. Sarkisian described relations with the diaspora as being "in poor shape" following the presidential election. (Armenpress, Noyan-Tapan, Interfax, November 8-11)

South Ossetia Elects a President Unrecognized by Georgia.