Thursday, December 04, 2020
Armenian Authorities Expect First COVID-19 Vaccines In February
December 04, 2020
• Naira Bulghadarian
Vials with a sticker reading "COVID-19 / Coronavirus vaccine / Injection only"
and a medical syringe are seen in front of a displayed AstraZeneca logo. October
31, 2020.
The Armenian government has commissioned 600,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines
from World Health Organization-backed COVAX Facility and hopes to receive their
first batch in February, a senior official said on Friday.
They will be enough to vaccinate 300,000 people making up roughly 10 percent of
Armenia’s population.
According to Gayane Sahakian, the deputy director of the National Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, medical and social workers, seniors and people
suffering from chronic diseases will be the first to get vaccine shots free of
charge.
COVAX is a global partnership which aims to finance COVID-19 vaccines to be
distributed fairly to more than 180 countries that have joined it. It should
give them access to several vaccine candidates in development globally. Vaccine
manufacturers and suppliers will be chosen by the COVAX administration.
The Armenian government’s supply contract with COVAX is worth $6 million.
“The first vaccine which COVAX will make available to the participating
countries is the one produced by the British company AstraZeneca,” Sahakian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “It is expected that the manufacturer will deliver it
to COVAX in February or March.”
“We can directly apply to any other manufacturer and get vaccines from them,”
she said. “But the cost will be quite high. Can we afford it? Of course we
can’t. That is why we are mainly pinning our hopes on the COVAX Facility.”
Sahakian at the same time did not exclude that the government will urgently buy
smaller quantities of vaccines from other sources for high risk categories of
the population.
RUSSIA -- A school teacher receives a jab while being injected with Sputnik V
vaccine against the coronavirus at a clinic in the town of Domodedovo near
Moscow, December 3, 2020
Late last month the Russian Ministry of Health donated several dozen doses of
the Russian vaccine Sputnik V to Armenia. It emerged on Friday that Health
Minister Arsen Torosian and his deputy Artyom Smbatian are among Armenian
volunteers vaccinated with Sputnik.
“He is feeling well and waiting for the next inoculation because the Russian
vaccine involves two shots,” said Torosian’s spokesman, Alina Nikoghosian.
The Armenian health authorities have confirmed a total of nearly 140,000
coronavirus cases so far. The real number of infections is believed to be much
higher.
Armenia Setting Up New Anti-Corruption Body
December 04, 2020
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian chairs a cabinet meeting in
Yerevan, December 3, 2020.
The Armenian government has formally approved a bill calling for the creation of
a special law-enforcement agency tasked with investigating corruption cases.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet sent the bill to the National Assembly
on Thursday. The parliament controlled by Pashinian’s My Step bloc is widely
expected to pass it.
Mariam Galstian, a senior official at the Armenian Ministry of Justice, said on
Friday that the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) will start operating in the
second half of 2021.
The committee will be set up in accordance with the government’s anti-graft
strategy and a three-year action plan adopted in October 2019. It will inherit
most of its powers from anti-corruption divisions of four Armenian
law-enforcement agencies that have long prosecuted corruption-related crimes.
Galstian expressed confidence that the ACC will be in a much better position to
combat bribery and other corrupt practices. “If you have several functions at a
time you cannot specialize in corruption-related crimes,” she told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
Galstian also said that the ACC will recruit not only officers of the anti-graft
divisions of the existing law-enforcement bodies but also other specialists. All
of them will be selected by a special commission on a competitive basis after
undergoing “integrity checks,” she said.
Under the government bill sent to the parliament, the commission would also
shortlist two candidates for the post of ACC chairperson. The Armenian prime
minister would appoint one of them as head of the new anti-graft agency.
In Galstian’s words, the commission will be made of not only state officials but
also civil society members.
Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated “systemic corruption” in
Armenia since coming to power in May 2018. Law-enforcement authorities have
launched dozens of high-profile corruption investigations during his rule.
Yerevan Keeps Pressing For Ex-Soviet Common Energy Market
December 04, 2020
RUSSIA -- A general view of the Atamanskaya compressor station, part of
Gazprom's Power Of Siberia project outside the far eastern town of Svobodny, in
Amur region, November 29, 2019
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian renewed on Friday his calls for the creation of a
single energy market that would lower the cost of Russian natural gas imported
by Armenia and other members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
The gas price is currently significantly lower for consumers in Russia than
other ex-Soviet states making up the trade bloc. Two of them, Armenia and
Belarus, have said that this puts their manufactures reliant on gas in a
disadvantaged position vis-à-vis their Russian competitors. They have pressed
Moscow to agree to uniform EEU energy tariffs.
Pashinian insisted on this idea during a video conference with the presidents of
Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan held in May.
Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected it, implying that Yerevan and Minsk
should agree first to even deeper economic integration with Moscow which would
result in a “single budget and system of taxation” for all EEU member states.
Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian indicated afterwards that Yerevan
is not prepared for such integration.
Pashinian again made a case for “the formation of common markets for oil, oil
products and gas” on Friday when he spoke at a virtual meeting of the prime
ministers of Russia and the four other EEU member states.
“We emphasize the need to look for a joint solution and final settlement of the
issue of forming a common gas market,” he said.
Pashinian’s government tried unsuccessfully this spring to get Russia’s Gazprom
monopoly to cut the price of Russian gas delivered to Armenia. It pointed to a
collapse in global energy prices resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
The gas prices for Armenian households and corporate consumers actually rose by
an average of about 5 percent in July. Armenian utility regulators argued that
they had remained unchanged since a Gazprom raised its wholesale price for
Armenia by 10 percent in January 2019.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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