SARA KHOJOYAN

Residents of the village of Goght in the Kotayk province of Armenia have kept the road to their village closed for a few hours, thus expressing their protest and disagreement with the government program, under which the Gegardalich water reservoir near the village is to be given to several villages after reconstruction.

Last week’s resolution adopted by the German Parliament, the Bundestag, will be a signal for other countries to consider starting an Armenian Genocide recognition process, said Hayk Demoyan, the head of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan.

While the Armenian government is taking steps to regulate “high concentration” areas of the economy, many in the country still remain skeptical about its having the necessary political will to fight against corruption and monopolies.

A new civil service law will be adopted this year. It is expected to make civil servants’ work more efficient and solve a number of major issues, something that so far has not been done due to its laboriousness, said Manvel Badalyan, the chairman of Armenia’s Civil Service Council, on Wednesday.

Armenia’s authorities have pledged to adopt, within less than six months, a law “On Prevention of Domestic Violence”, which has twice been sent back from the National Assembly and is being amended again.

The statement by Armenia’s Economy Minister Artsvik Minasyan about the possible official granting of a monopoly for sugar importation has deepened public skepticism regarding the government’s declared anti-trust and anti-corruption efforts.

Armenia is not taking any practical steps to become a more reliable economic partner for Iran, due to which it seems to be getting bypassed by another major regional project, says economist Vahagn Khachatryan.

Thousands of activists have joined the appeal of the Nagorno Karabakh authorities for people to come to the unrecognized republic that has seen a dramatic fall in the number of tourists this year because of the brief war with Azerbaijan in early April.

A New York-based photojournalist well known for her photographs of American President Barack Obama during his campaign leading up to his presidency has conducted a workshop for students in Nagorno Karabakh, helping them organize a photo exhibition of their own works.

As the debate about whether the territories lost by the Armenian military in the brief war with Azerbaijan in Nagorno Karabakh in early April goes on in Armenia, hundreds of displaced residents of a village situated close to the restive line of contact in the northeastern direction cannot return to their homes because of the altered military positions.