Wednesday, November 1, 2017 Armenia Reports Another Massive Heroin Seizure . Emil Danielyan Armenia - Official photographs on the seizure of 105 kilograms of heroin reported by the State Revenue Committee. The Armenian customs service said on Wednesday that it has found and confiscated more than 100 kilograms of heroin from a Turkish-owned truck that crossed into Armenia from Iran. The State Revenue Committee (SRC) said the truck driven by a Turkish man underwent an X-ray inspection at the Meghri crossing on the Armenian-Iranian border before being escorted to a customs warehouse in Yerevan. According to an SRC statement, customs officers there examined it more meticulously and found 105 kilograms (233 pounds) of heroin hidden inside the heavy vehicle's bodywork. The statement added that the smuggling case has been referred to Armenia's National Security Service (NSS). The latter did not issue any statements on the massive drug bust as of Wednesday afternoon. It was thus not clear whether the truck driver, identified as Ferdi Ozdemir, was taken into custody. The SRC released photographs of the truck and the drug consignment allegedly found inside it. It also said that the vehicle belongs to a cargo company registered in Georgia. The company's reported name, Omertransport, suggests that it has Turkish owners. Turkish nationals were already implicated in what was the biggest heroin seizure in Armenia's history reported by the authorities in Yerevan in January 2014. Armenian customs officers confiscated at the time as much as 850 kilograms of the Class A drug from a Georgian-registered truck that also entered the country from Iran. Armenia - Osman Ugurlu, a Turkish citizen sentenced by an Armenian court to 19 years in prison on drug trafficking charges. The truck's Georgian driver as well as a Turkish citizen, Osman Ugurlu, were arrested and subsequently sentenced by an Armenian court to 17 and 19 years in prison respectively. Armenian prosecutors claimed during their trial that Ugurlu conspired with two other Turks to transport huge amounts of heroin from Iran to Europe via Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine. They said the Turks set up a cargo firm in Georgia for that purpose in 2013. Both defendants pleaded not guilty to the accusations. Iran is thought to be the main source of drug trafficking through Armenia. Scores of Iranians have been imprisoned in Armenia on corresponding charges over the past two decades. "Most drugs are smuggled in trucks driven across the Iranian border crossing at Meghri," the U.S. State Department said in its 2016 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. It said that with U.S. and European Union assistance Armenia is "improving its ability to detect illegal narcotics shipments." The report also noted that closed borders with Turkey an Azerbaijan make Armenia "less attractive for drug trafficking" and that drug abuse among Armenians is "modest." Armenian Bill Against Domestic Violence Criticized By Ruling Party . Astghik Bedevian Armenia - Eduard Sharmazanov, spokesman for the ruling Republican Party, at a news conference in Yerevan, 14May2017. The Armenian government will amend its bill aimed at combatting domestic violence in response to criticism voiced by conservative members of the ruling Republican Party (HHK), Justice Minister Davit Harutiunian said on Wednesday. The bill drafted by Armenia's Justice Ministry would introduce criminal and administrative liability for specific cases defined as domestic violence. It would also obligate the state to protect female victims by providing them with special shelters or banning their violent spouses from approaching them and even their children. The proposed legislation is strongly backed by women's rights groups campaigning for much tougher government action against the practice. But it has met with fierce resistance from some conservative groups and nationalist public figures. Several senior HHK figures have added their voiced to the criticism. Eduard Sharmazanov, a deputy parliament speaker and the HHK spokesman, demanded on Wednesday that the Justice Ministry revise provisions of the bill that "contradict traditional Armenian family values." "There are many contentious clauses that require explanations," he told reporters. Sharmazanov complained that the bill is vague on "psychological violence" and "economic violence" defined by it. "Tell me, what is psychological violence?" he asked. "If my [underage] daughter or my son says that he or she wants to smoke and I don't let them do that, will they be able to say that `my dad subjects me to psychological violence?'" Sharmazanov said the authors of the bill must also clarify who would be running the special shelters financed by the state. Harutiunian said, meanwhile, that some provisions of the draft law will be "specified" in order to address concerns voiced by the critics from the HHK and other groups. But he made clear that the amendments will not be significant. In that regard, the minister stressed the importance of making "psychological violence" in Armenian families an administrative or criminal offense. "Successful countries are the ones which promptly react to psychological violence so that it does not escalate into physical violence," he said. A senior representative of the Armenian police called for the passage of the bill when she spoke at parliamentary hearings in Yerevan on October 17. The police recorded 3,571 cases of domestic violence from 2012-2016. According to the Yerevan-based Women's Resource Center, more than 50 Armenian women have been beaten to death and murdered otherwise by their husbands or other relatives in the last five years. Armenia Slides In Investment Climate Rankings . Sargis Harutyunyan The World Bank has downgraded Armenia's position in its annual survey on ease of doing business around the world despite reporting a slight improvement in the country's investment climate. Armenia ranked 47th in the latest Doing Business survey which assessed economic conditions in 190 nations with a range of specific indicators. It was 38th in last year's global rankings. The country's overall score has improved over the past year. The authors of the World Bank report believe that the Armenian authorities further simplified property registration procedures and facilitated businesses' access to electricity supplies. In a statement, the bank's Yerevan office attributed the worsening of Armenia's position to "significant improvements" of other countries' business environments as well as "methodological adjustments and data revisions." It did not comment further. Prime Minister Karen Karapetian declined on Wednesday to comment on the latest World Bank assessment released on Tuesday. He said he will talk about it at an upcoming news conference. Ever since he took office in September 2016 Karapetian has regularly pledged to improve the domestic investment climate. In its policy program approved by the parliament in June, Karapetian's government committed itself to placing Armenia among the top 20 countries in the Doing Business rankings "as a result of reforms of the next four or five years." President Serzh Sarkisian set this goal in May. Earlier this year, the government promised 49 policy measures for that purpose. Those include stronger government support for small and medium-sized businesses, better investor protection, easier access to credit, and more simple rules for obtaining construction permits. Some government officials claimed in August that this should help Armenia move up to 26th place in Doing Business already this year. Artak Manukian, a Yerevan-based economist, downplayed the World Bank report's practical impact on investor confidence. "In Georgia, for example, there has been a real fight against corruption," he said. "Investors see that and that translates into a rise in foreign direct investment. Doing Business is the probably weakest of signals [to investors.] Unless it is backed up by practice, it will remain on paper." Presidential Staff Set For Sharp Downsizing . Tatev Danielian Armenia -- The presidential palace in Yerevan. The chief of President Serzh Sarkisian's staff revealed on Wednesday that it will shrink by half after Armenia switches to a parliamentary system of government in April. Armen Gevorgian said that staff cuts in the presidential administration are already in progress. "We began the year with 410 employees, reduced [their number] to 385 by June 1 and to 330 by October 1," Gevorgian told a standing committee of the Armenian parliament. It is expected that the next president of the republic will have only 180 to 200 staffers, he said. Government funding for the presidential staff will be cut accordingly. In Gevorgian's words, the government's draft budget for next year sets aside 2.4 billion drams ($5 billion) for that purpose, down from 4.9 billion drams budgeted for this year. Sarkisian's second and final presidential term ends in April. His successor will be elected by the parliament, rather than popular vote, and have largely ceremonial powers. In line with a controversial constitutional reform enacted by Sarkisian in 2015, most of the currently sweeping presidential powers will be transferred to the prime minister and his cabinet that must enjoy the backing of the parliamentary majority. Sarkisian's Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) controls the majority of seats in the National Assembly elected in April 2017. Neither the outgoing president nor his party has indicated so far who could become Armenia's next head of state. It also remains unclear whether Sarkisian is planning to become prime minister or take up another state post after the end of his decade-long presidency. Press Review "Zhamanak" reports that with its draft budget for next year the Armenian government has revealed plans to lay off more than 5,000 public sector employees. The paper is sure that none of them is a high-ranking official. "On one hand, this should have been a welcome development because it presupposes budgetary savings," it says. "But this is the case only in theory because in practice budgetary savings in Armenia require totally different # legal-judicial steps." The paper says that public funds are primarily misused and wasted by senior and mid-level bureaucrats, not the kind of people that will lose their jobs next year. "Zhoghovurd" comments on the appointment of a former pro-government parliamentarian, Ruben Sadoyan, as Armenia's new ambassador to Georgia. "This name certainly says nothing to the general public," writes the paper. "It turns out that during the 10 long years of his parliamentary activity, from 2007 to 2017, Ruben Sadoyan did not utter a single word in the National Assembly # In other words, he only pressed [electronic voting] buttons there. And now Serzh Sarkisian is sending this guy to Georgia as ambassador to a country which is of strategic importance to Armenia. Serzh Sarkisian treats the posts of Armenia's ambassadors abroad as gifts which he hands out in order to please one or another individual or to keep them employed." "This appointment is quite noteworthy," writes "Haykakan Zhamanak." The paper cites reports that Sadoyan was named after the Georgian government refused to accept Sarkisian's previous pick of Armenian ambassador in Tbilisi, political analyst Sergey Minasian. It says that Sadoyan is a figure close to former Transport Minister Gagik Beglarian, who is said to have a "warm rapport" with Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. "Aravot" scoffs at Armenian Apostolic Church clerics' public condemnations of Halloween celebrations in Armenia increasingly popular with young people. "Is this the most important issue facing our society?" the paper asks, arguing that the church has never publicly denounced government corruption or other chronic abuses in the country. Instead, it says, they extol corrupt officials and tax-evading oligarchs that finance the construction of new churches. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org