Armenia’s high rate of male births is alarming international and Armenian pre-natal specialists. Their chief concern is that selective abortions are contributing to a demographically undesirable gender imbalance.
Once again, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, failed during their recent summit to reconcile their differences on the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. If this is starting to sound familiar, it should. The two countries have spent almost four years getting nowhere on finalizing the supposed “basic principles” for a Karabakh peace deal.
Yerevan’s city government, a body not generally known for being digitally savvy, is making a break with the Analog Age. Seeking to encourage the use of public transportation, officials have authorized a pilot project to provide free Wi-Fi on five city buses.
Often depicted as a disaster waiting to happen, Armenia’s 35-year-old nuclear power station, Metsamor, has passed muster with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But don’t expect the debate over the plant’s safety standards to end any time soon.
After more than three years of political strife, the Armenian government and the country’s main opposition coalition, the Armenian National Congress, appear ready to bury the hatchet.
Armenia’s parliament on May 26 approved a presidential amnesty that will set free four individuals who are portrayed by government critics as political prisoners. It remains unclear whether the amnesty means that Armenian opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian and top officials in Yerevan will now sit down to engage in a much-touted “open dialogue.”
In Armenia, it is routine for the annual Eurovision contest to provoke heated debate about the relative merits of the performers. But this year, post-contest discussion in Yerevan is also laden with political and diplomatic significance.
It’s billed as an “open dialogue,” but as the weeks drag on, many Armenians are wondering what exactly members of President Serzh Sargsyan’s administration and opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian are talking about.
Like Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been busy arguing, talking, and much, much more as they wait for the first civilian flight in 20 years to land in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. And now, as in the case of Godot, it looks like their wait might continue “indefinitely.”
Officials in Armenia have long downplayed the potential threats posed by the aging Metsamor nuclear power plant, not far from the capital Yerevan. At the same time, the facility has been repeatedly ranked as one of the world’s most dangerous nuclear power stations.
