Latest Articles about Armenia

LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPOSE WEAKNESS OF ARMENIAN CIVIL SOCIETY

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Armenia's ongoing local election season is exposing the degradation of its democratic institutions as well as the weakness of its civil society. The polls, effectively boycotted by the Armenian opposition, are essentially an intra-government affair, with rival wealthy individuals seeking to further their business interests... MORE

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT PAVES WAY FOR TENSE CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM

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Setting the stage for another government showdown with the opposition, Armenia's parliament approved on September 1 the final version of President Robert Kocharian's Western-backed constitutional amendments that will be put to a national referendum in November. The move came after three days of heated debates... MORE

CELL PHONE NETWORK FAILURE HIGHLIGHTS ARMENIA’S TELECOM WOES

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The long-awaited liberalization of Armenia's underdeveloped mobile phone sector could not have had a more unexpected and illogical outcome: the near-collapse of the country's main wireless network. ArmenTel, the unpopular national telecommunications monopoly that operates the system, has still not clearly explained the causes of... MORE

ARMENIAN NUCLEAR PLANT TO FUNCTION FOR ANOTHER DECADE

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Armenia appears to have decided to keep its vital nuclear power station at Metsamor operational for another decade, despite persisting Western concerns about the safety of the Soviet-built facility. The authorities in Yerevan, reluctant to set a date for the plant's inevitable closure until recently,... MORE

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION CONSIDERS SUPPORTING CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

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The Armenian authorities have been given a major boost in their standoff with the opposition with the Council of Europe's effective endorsement of their draft amendments to Armenia's controversial post-Soviet constitution. Experts from the Venice Commission have declared that the amendments' passage at a referendum... MORE

RUSSIAN TAKEOVER OF ARMENIAN POWER GRID PROMPTS CONCERN

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Armenia is under fire from the United States and other Western donors over the legally questionable transfer of its electricity distribution network to Russia's Unified Energy Systems (UES). The deal could have far-reaching repercussions for the country's economic independence and hamper continued Western assistance to... MORE

U.S. CONTINUES LARGE-SCALE ASSISTANCE TO ARMENIA

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Reflecting the influence of the Armenian community in the United States, the U.S. Congress is blocking yet another attempt by the White House to sizably cut long-running American assistance to Armenia. The small South Caucasus state is thus due to remain one of the world's... MORE

ARMENIA, AZERBAIJAN REPORT MORE PROGRESS TOWARD KARABAKH PEACE

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Armenia and Azerbaijan have reported further progress in their decade-long negotiations on the Karabakh enclave following the June 17 meeting of their foreign ministers in Paris. International mediators are now cautiously upbeat about prospects for resolving the most intractable ethnic dispute in the former Soviet... MORE