Tuesday,
Armenian Schools, Universities Reopen After COVID-19 Shutdown
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia -- A teacher measures a first grader's temperature at the entrance to a
school in Yerevan, .
Schools and universities across Armenia reopened their doors to students on
Tuesday six months after being closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Classes for first graders and university freshman students began earlier this
month.
Virtually all Armenian educational establishments switched in March to online
classes that continued until the end of the last academic year in June.
The Armenian government decided last month to end the shutdown amid a falling
number of coronavirus cases in the country. The downward trend has continued
since then.
The government set strict sanitary and hygienic rules for all schools,
universities and vocational training colleges. In particular, there can be no
more than 20 schoolchildren in a classroom at a time and all of them must be
seated apart and wear face masks during classes.
School administrations have to provide students with hand sanitizers and
regularly disinfect classrooms. They must also ensure that all teachers get
tested for COVID-19.
The mandatory testing of Armenia’s 30,000 or so schoolteachers began a week ago.
Teachers found to be infected with the disease must self-isolate or be
hospitalized, if necessary.
The Ministry of Education reported on Monday that 1,280 teachers have been
allowed to continue working online because of their old age and/or chronic
diseases.
The government rules also allow those students who are chronically ill or have
infected family members to stick to distance learning. More than 2,400 of the
country’s 397,607 secondary and high school students have qualified for such
exemptions, according to the ministry.
An RFE/RL correspondent witnessed widespread non-compliance with some of the
rules at Yerevan’s Secondary School No. 197. Teachers there admitted that a
single COVID-19 infection could trigger an outbreak of the potentially deadly
respiratory disease.
In one of the school’s classrooms, most students did not wear face masks. Both
their teacher and the school’s acting principal, Svetlana Nahatakian, had masks
on but did not wear them correctly.
“We can understand the kids,” Nahatakian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service. She
said that hot weather makes mask-wearing very difficult.
By contrast, all students of another class wore masks. “It’s better to be safe
and stay away from the virus,” said one of them, the 10-year-old Helena. Her
masked classmates felt more uncomfortable.
Armenia -- High school students in Yerevan wear face masks, .
Boys standing in the courtyard of the nearby High School No. 198 put on masks
only after noticing a reporter’s camera. But inside the school everyone seemed
to respect the rule, even if there too many students complained that masks cause
them too much inconvenience.
“We explain to them that it’s temporary and we need to adapt,” said the school
principal, Sargis Khachatrian.
Khachatrian admitted that it is not easy to enforce the anti-epidemic
requirement. “Apart from teaching courses and doing your normal work, you also
have to act like an overseer because you bear responsibility for your and other
people’s health,” he said.
Wearing face masks in all public spaces -- both indoors and outdoors -- has been
mandatory in Armenia since June. The government kept this and other restrictions
in place when it lifted a coronavirus-related state of emergency on September 11.
The Ministry of Health said earlier on Tuesday 150 more Armenians have tested
positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, sharply down from an average of
550-600 cases a day registered in the first half of July and roughly 250 daily
infections recorded in early August.
Since the start of the pandemic the ministry has reported a total of 46,119
coronavirus cases and 920 deaths in the country of about 3 million.
Armenian Central Bank Sees Steeper GDP Fall In 2020
• Emil Danielyan
Armenia -- A textile factory in Berd, August 7, 2020.
Armenia’s Gross Domestic Product will shrink by 6.2 percent this year due to the
continuing coronavirus crisis, the Central Bank said on Tuesday in a downward
revision of its outlook for the domestic economy.
The bank forecast a steeper GDP contraction after cutting its benchmark interest
rate for the fourth time in six months.
Its governing board lowered the refinancing rate to 4.25 percent, down from 4.5
percent set in June. The minimum cost of borrowing in the country stood at 5.5
percent at the start of the coronavirus pandemic early this year.
In a statement, the Central Bank attributed the latest rate cut to weak consumer
demand and a slower-than-expected pace of economic recovery. It said that
lingering uncertainty over the length of the pandemic will “considerably
restrain and delay” economic rebounds in Russia and other major trading partners
of Armenia. The bank is therefore “inclined” to continue softening its monetary
policy in the months ahead, added the statement.
“People prefer to save, rather than consume, because there is uncertainty,”
Martin Galstian, the Central Bank governor, told a news conference held after
the board meeting. “It’s not an Armenian phenomenon. It’s also observed in other
countries.”
“Nobody knows when this coronavirus situation will end and what its outcome will
be,” he said, according to the Armenpress news agency.
Armenia - Martin Galstian, the governor of the Armenian Central Bank, at a news
conference, Yerevan, .
Government data shows the Armenian economy contracting by about 14 percent in
the second quarter of this year after growing by almost 4 percent in the first
quarter. The decline followed a coronavirus-related nationwide lockdown imposed
by the Armenian government in March.
The government gradually reopened most sectors of the economy by the beginning
of May. The Central Bank forecast in June a full-year GDP fall of 4 percent.
According to its latest revised projections reported by Galstian, 2020 will see
a 6.2 percent negative growth rate.
The bank’s statement noted worse-than-expected macroeconomic indicators recorded
by Armenia’s Statistical Committee in July.
The government agency registered roughly 10 percent decreases in the volume of
construction, trade and other services in the first seven months of this year.
By contrast, Armenian industrial output rose by 1.3 percent year on year in the
same period.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian insisted last week that Armenia has avoided a
grave socioeconomic crisis despite the worldwide fallout from the pandemic.
Pashinian cited government figures suggesting that unemployment in the country
has not increased significantly since March. He also stressed the importance of
more than 163 billion drams ($336 million) that has been spent by his government
on various stimulus measures.
Opposition figures and other critics of the government have dismissed these
measures as insufficient. They remain very critical of the government’s response
to the coronavirus crisis and its economic consequences.
Galstian was concerned about continuing delays in the implementation of
government-funded infrastructure projects which were expected to mitigate the
recession. Still, the Central Bank chief forecast that economic growth in
Armenia should resume and reach about 5 percent already next year.
The Armenian economy had expanded robustly since 2017. The government reported a
7.6 percent growth rate last year.
New Members Of Armenian Constitutional Court Appointed
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia -- The main meeting room of the Constitutional Court, Yerevan, September
3, 2019.
The Armenian parliament elected on Tuesday three new members of the country’s
Constitutional Court who will replace justices controversially ousted in June.
The parliament’s pro-government majority voted for them three months after
passing constitutional changes calling for the gradual resignation of seven of
the court’s nine judges locked in a standoff with Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian’s political team.
Three of them were to resign with immediate effect. The constitutional
amendments also required Hrayr Tovmasian to quit as court chairman but remain a
judge.
Tovmasian and the ousted judges refused to step down, saying that their removal
is illegal and politically motivated. They appealed to the European Court of
Human Rights (ECHR) to have them reinstated.
Tovmasian and the six other court justices have been under strong government
pressure to step down over the past year. Pashinian has accused them of
maintaining close ties to Armenia’s former government and impeding his judicial
reforms. Tovmasian has dismissed Pashinian’s claims and in turn accused the
prime minister of seeking to take control of the country’s highest court.
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) and Constitutional Court Chairman
Hrayr Tovmasian shake hands ahead of a 2018 meeting in Yerevan.
In line with the Armenian constitution, Pashinian’s government, President Armen
Sarkissian and a national convention of Armenian judges each nominated last
month a candidate to replace the ousted high court members.
The government’s pick for the court was Edgar Shatirian, a 40-year-old law
lecturer, while Sarkissian nominated Artur Vagharshian, a chair of jurisprudence
at Yerevan State University. The judges’ nominee, Yervand Khundkarian, has
headed the Court of Cassation, Armenia’s highest body of criminal and
administrative justice, for the last two years.
Pro-government deputies overwhelmingly backed all three candidates despite
objections voiced by some of them. The latter claimed, in particular, that
Khundkarian, Vagharshian and Shatirian were linked to the former Armenian
authorities in one way or another.
Alen Simonian, a deputy parliament speaker and leading member of Pashinian’s My
Step bloc, downplayed the misgivings. “Believe me, no matter whom we nominate
there will always be conflicting interests,” he told journalists after the
announcement of the parliament vote results.
Simonian also insisted that the current authorities are not intent on creating a
“puppet” Constitutional Court. “The authorities are forming a new and principled
Constitutional Court,” he said.
The election of the new court justices was boycotted by lawmakers representing
the two parliamentary opposition parties, Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia.
They maintain that the recent constitutional changes were enacted in breach of
other articles of the Armenian constitution.
Armenia, Azerbaijan Urged To ‘Clarify Positions’
Switzerland - The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs meet with the Armenian and
Azerbaijani foreign ministers in Geneva, January 29, 2020.
International mediators have called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to prepare the
ground for renewed talks on resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict two months
after deadly fighting on the border between the two countries.
The U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group met in
Paris on Monday for what they described as “intensive consultations” on ways of
kick-starting the Karabakh peace process.
“The Co-Chairs carefully considered and assessed the private and public messages
and concerns of the sides,” they said in a joint statement issued after the
meeting.
The mediators also spoke separately by phone with Foreign Ministers Jeyhun
Bayramov of Azerbaijan and Zohrab Mnatsakanian of Armenia. According to the
statement, they “invited the ministers to meet individually with the Co-Chairs
in person in the coming weeks to further clarify their respective positions,
with the aim of resuming serious substantive negotiations without preconditions.”
Speaking after talks with Bayramov held in Moscow on August 26, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said the mediators are planning to visit the conflict
zone and organize talks between the top Armenian and Azerbaijani diplomats.
Lavrov stressed that these plans are contingent on preventing the kind of deadly
ceasefire violations that broke out on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border on July
12.
The weeklong border clashes involving artillery and attack drones left at least
17 soldiers from both sides dead. They erupted just days after Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev lambasted the Minsk Group co-chairs and threatened to
pull out of “pointless negotiations” with Yerevan.
The conflicting parties have reported no serious ceasefire violations on the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the “line of contact” around Karabakh since the
beginning of August.
The mediators said a small OSCE mission monitoring the ceasefire regime there is
now preparing to resume its work which was suspended early this year because of
the coronavirus pandemic. The longtime head of the mission, Andrzej Kasprzyk,
also took part in their meeting in Paris.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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