Author: Suren Karakhanian

 15:24,

YEREVAN, MAY 27, ARMENPRESS. The state budget is the gross national pocket and it must be treated as one treats the family budget, PM Nikol Pashinyan said on the planned amendments in the property tax area.

“There are two attitudes towards the state budget – when the state system finds it to be its own, and the society finds every penny paid to the budget to be lost money. This is our gross national pocket and we must treat the state budget like we treat our family budget. Yes, property tax will increase, but it will mostly increase on the kind of property which we conditionally call palaces or castles. Today if we look how much property taxes these huge villas are paying, it’s basically symbolic taxes. There is a component of lavish tax also here.

Now people are building houses without taking into account any adjacent factor, the bigger, the higher, the more inconvenient for others the better. If so, then the owners of such properties must pay,” the PM said.

He said the property tax for nearly 500,000 beneficiaries will drop in the first year and then it will gradually increase. “Meaning 2021 will be in the logic of post-crisis, then the increases will take place according to the situation”.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

 11:16,

YEREVAN, MAY 12, ARMENPRESS. Lawmaker Mkhitar Hayrapetyan from the ruling My Step bloc has called for increasing the level of media literacy among the public.

“Our top priority objective ought to be media literacy. Without it, every hour the Armenian citizen will face the threat of being manipulated or misled. There is no alternative to the state’s work with the public. It is media literacy that will solve the problem facing the Armenian citizen. We must have the kind of educated society which will clearly differentiate fake and lies from healthy and substantiated critique,” Hayrapetyan, who serves as the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport told lawmakers in parliament on May 12.

Hayrapetyan said that there are some media outlets that are circulating fake news and lies, and added: “No government can shut down any news website in Armenia, but specific and effective new mechanisms – equal and fair for all –  must be in place in the mass media sector”, he said.

He said the law regulating the news media should be amended.

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan

 16:23, 8 May, 2020

YEREVAN, MAY 8, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says he finds the brawl in parliament to be a result of provocation by opposition Bright Armenia (LHK) party, but at the same time he condemned his political force, the My Step faction, for giving in to the provocation.

“I would like to unequivocally emphasize my attitude, by saying that I condemn any occurrence of violence with all its manifestations. I would like to emphasize – violence with all its manifestations, because violence can be not only physical, but also moral, violence can be psychological. And I must very directly emphasize that for already two years the revolutionary team, including this parliamentary majority and this government are consistently and continuously being subjected to moral and psychological violence,” Pashinyan said.

The PM said the goal of these provocations is to subvert and weaken the political majority and subvert the trust between the people and the political majority.

He reminded that on May 7 Bright Armenia leader Edmon Marukyan had invited him to a meeting, and he had accepted it. “And I had directly said that we all have reasons to suspect that you and your activity, all these psychological and moral violence, were eventually an integral part of a plan of launching physical violence”, he said.

Pashinyan said he has re-watched the video from the incident several times and described it as “a disgusting provocation”, but at the same time he condemned it and condemned that his team has given in to it.

“I condemn us, I condemn myself. And today’s happening I find to be our and my own biggest loss that we had after the revolution. But let this not make anyone hopeful. I have lost, lost many times and I have seen the lie’s sneer, but my will is stronger than stone, my spirit doesn’t know surrender,” he said, quoting his own poem.

He said he believes the opposition’s behavior is linked with the law on the Stolen Asset Recovery, and numerous criminal cases.

“Violence has no place in our reality, and this incident must never again be repeated,” he said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan