After waiting in the queue for two hours in one of the Gyumri post offices, Alvard Mkrtchyan, 70, finally gets her monthly pension. Alvard’s pension, which is 30,000 AMD (US$75), is the only source of money for her 6-member family: her ill son, daughter-in-law and three teenage grandchildren.

“My son is not capable of working; my daughter-in-law is taking care of her husband” – says Alvard Mkrtchyan with tears in her eyes.

She has a work experience of 35 years as a cleaner at a local school.

“The pension is hardly enough to pay for the utilities, flour, potatoes and oil, not even talking about clothes and other basic needs. We are not living, we are surviving.”

According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, there are about 320,000 retired pensioners in Armenia. Starting from January, 2012, the Government raised the pensions by 10%. Thus the average pension rounds to 28,000-30,000 AMD (about US$70).

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Tigran Sargsyan stressed in his speech during the government session in December, that the increase in prices is fully compensated by the raise in the retirement pensions.

Read More »Living or Surviving /Digital story/

Azatuhi Simonyan, 20, is one of the young parliamentarians of the Youth Parliament (YP) in Armenia, which was created in May, 2011. The parliament has 131 deputies who represent political parties, NGOs, university student councils and minority groups.

“I like the idea of youth parliament, since I see it as a place for young professionals’ self expression, the opportunity to enter into political process rather than blindly follow it on TV news,” says Azatuhi.

Youth Parliament is a place where Armenian young activists learn how to argue for their plans, motions and get a better image on formulation of a draft law and its adoption.

Anna Barseghyan, 21, represents her native Aragatsotn province in the YP. “The major incentive is the opportunity to have an input in the form of law by presenting certain elements from my own system of values,” she says.

Anna believes that this is an excellent place for the parties to include independent young people in their parties, mentioning that those youngsters may help them lead active election campaigns. Nonetheless, she does not consider that their actions have brought any changes in the political sphere up to now.

Read More »Young activists look for their place in Armenian politics

A new daily – the “Gyumri-Asparez” – has been published in Gyumri. Author of the initiative is the Journalists’ Club “Asparez” in Gyumri.

Presentation of the first official issue was held on October 12. Before publishing the first issue, five experimental issues were published and distributed among the Shirak population free-of-charge (read also “Restoring the Tradition: Gyumri-based “Asparez” Want to Publish a Daily”).

According to Levon Barseghyan, council chairman of the “Asparez” Club, the Shirak marz did not have a local daily for about 20 years, hence, their aim is to anyhow restore the tradition of dailies. Materials for the daily are fully or partially published on Asparez.am website.

“We want to create a paper to make the society to get tied to it. We don’t want it to be a formal newspaper, but a table paper of people. And if we provide noteworthy materials, then people will be ready to spend 200-300 AMD for it,” believes Barseghyan. 

Read More »New Heartbeat: After a 20-year Break Gyumri has a Daily Again

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency says two filmmakers arrested last month over their alleged links to BBC’s Farsi-language service have been released.

Fars said Monday that Nasser Saffarian and Mohsen Shahrnaz had been freed, without providing further details.

The agency did not say if four other independent filmmakers detained on the same charges — providing the British Broadcasting Corp. with video and news reports perceived as damaging to Iran — would also be released.

Tehran has accused the BBC of operating as a cover for British intelligence and of seeking to harm Iran by hosting Iranian dissidents.

Source: Washingtonpost.com

Read More »Iran frees two of six jailed journalists

Google has posted geospatial data on Georgia. From now on any interested user can find detailed information about Georgia on Google Map.

The National Agency of Public Registry of the Ministry of Justice has been conducting talks with the Google administration.

According to the Ministry spokespersons the public registry had been accumulating geographic and spatial data for a year and a half now to launch detailed information on Georgia on Google.

From Georgia the Google administration was sent a detailed map of the country providing info on roads, mountains, peaks, ferries, rivers as well as other sights and railways. The GIS group of the public registry was working on the interactive map.

The Public Registry, the Ministry of Justice said, has retrieved data from the Institute of Geography, department of statistics and roads, Ministry of Environment and other agencies.

Google Map will be providing tourists with complete information about the means of transport and lodging locations. Through the online map users can easily find streets, the destinations of importance and interest. Each of the destinations is attached with useful information, geographic coordinates and so on.

With the use of the map tools one can measure distance between destinations as well as zooming in and out.

Read More »Google Posts Data for Georgia

Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini considers baseless the accusations of the BBC World Service Director Peter Horrocks that the relatives of staff working for BBC incur pressure from the government in Iran.

BBC promoted the colonial policy of Britain, caused a controversy in society, and therefore, its activity in Iran has been stopped, Hosseini told Trend.

According to Horrocks, after BBC displayed a documentary film about the Supreme Religious Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran, six documentary filmmakers were arrested, also the families of ten Iranian staff working for BBC incurred pressure.

The journalists who cooperate with some foreign media outlets were warned to be attentive with the media outlets, of which activities run counter to the interests of the Iranian state. Some journalists have been punished, the minister said in an interview with Trend.

“There were many people who came to Iran under the guise of journalists, but then engaged in spying,” said Hosseini. According to the minister, the freedom of speech in Iran is at a high level, all conditions have been created for the media outlets in the country, more than 4,500 media outlets have been registered, of which 3,000 are currently working.

Read More »Iranian minister of culture considers BBC accusations baseless

Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini considers baseless the accusations of the BBC World Service Director Peter Horrocks that the relatives of staff working for BBC incur pressure from the government in Iran.

BBC promoted the colonial policy of Britain, caused a controversy in society, and therefore, its activity in Iran has been stopped, Hosseini told Trend.

According to Horrocks, after BBC displayed a documentary film about the Supreme Religious Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran, six documentary filmmakers were arrested, also the families of ten Iranian staff working for BBC incurred pressure.

The journalists who cooperate with some foreign media outlets were warned to be attentive with the media outlets, of which activities run counter to the interests of the Iranian state. Some journalists have been punished, the minister said in an interview with Trend.

“There were many people who came to Iran under the guise of journalists, but then engaged in spying,” said Hosseini. According to the minister, the freedom of speech in Iran is at a high level, all conditions have been created for the media outlets in the country, more than 4,500 media outlets have been registered, of which 3,000 are currently working.

Read More »Iranian minister of culture considers BBC accusations baseless

From October 1, 2011 Perviy Informatsionniy Kavkazsky (PIK) (First Caucasus News), the Russian-language channel of the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) will be headed by Ekaterine Kotrikadze, incumbent head of news service of the channel and Robert Parsons, incumbent Director General will be appointed to the position of the chairperson of the PIK Board of Trustees.

“Reorganization is being on at PIK,” said Zurab Kodalashvili reporting to Media.ge. He quit the position of PIK’s Executive Director in September.

The Tabula magazine of September 12 published the interview with Robert Parsons. According to the respondent PIK is going to merge with the Russian-language Region TV.

“In the small county such as Georgia there is no need for two Russian-language languages,” said Parsons then. The reorganization, he said, which implies the merger of these two channels is due to end late this year.

PIK conducts broadcasting through satellite across East Europe, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus as well as Middle East and Asia Minor.

The PIK website is being visited by approximately 50,000 unique users on a daily basis.

Since autumn 2010 PIK has been managed by a private company K1 having invited British specialists as managers. Some of them have already left the channel.

Read More »Staff Changes Being on at TV PIK

A Turkish prosecutor conducting the investigation into the assassination of Turkish- Armenian journalist Hrant Dink said on Monday that the murder was committed by Ergenekon’s cell in the Black Sea province of Trabzon.

Prosecutor Hikmet Usta announced his opinion as to who masterminded the assassination and as to the accusations directed at suspects during the 20th hearing of the 20-suspect Dink trial at the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court. The prosecutor said the murder was the work of Ergenekon’s Trabzon cell and demanded life imprisonment for seven suspects, including key suspects Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, on charges of attempting to destroy the constitutional order.

“The Dink assassination was the latest assassination of the deep structures. The suspects acted on ideological motives. The target was the Turkish Republic and public order. There is suspicion that the murder is linked to the Ergenekon network. We have reached the conclusion that the Dink murder was committed by the Trabzon cell of the Ergenekon terrorist organization,” Prosecutor Usta said.

Read More »Prosecutor says Ergenekon’s Trabzon cell committed Dink murder