“Aravot” carries a scathing editorial on Sunday’s controversial national selection for the popular pan-European song contest, Eurovision, which resulted in a scandal after the runner-up’s team claimed a rigged SMS voting outcome.
“Have you ever seen the value of an art work being judged by an SMS voting? This is only a game that has nothing to do with art,” writes the paper’s editor. “Try to send to Eurovision any of the songs by Arno Babajanian or Robert Amirkhanian, and you will see how many votes they get in text-message polls. These songs will fail primarily because their composers displayed their individuality by trying to find means of expressions that would make their songs different from millions of others.”
The editorial also draws a parallel between the song contest and politics and writes that “if fraud was indeed committed in this case, then like other cases of fraud it will remain undisclosed.” “The question here is whether the losing party will seek justice in the Constitutional Court and whether the court will recognize [national selection winner] Eva Rivas’s victory with reservations or without,” the paper concludes sarcastically.
“Golos Armenii” writes that “the reaction of Armenian politicians to the anti-Armenian draft resolution of the OSCE on the involvement of the army in the post-election developments in Armenia in 2008 was not difficult to predict.”
“The parties of the governing coalition and even the currently opposition Dashnak party in their own words treat not seriously the document authored by a Swedish politician lobbied by Azerbaijan. We will remind you that the work of the parliamentary ad hoc committee conducting the probe into the post-election clashes for a year and a half did not produce the results that were expected from it… No answer was provided as to whose actions led to ten deaths. Now it is very easy to blame everything on the biased attitude of foreigners, on Azerbaijani-Turkish lobbyist groups, on the support to these lobbyists given by radical oppositionists from inside Armenia. These are, of course, real factors, but they do not disclose the essence of the issue.”
“Hayots Ashkhar” asserts that “the tighter the circle is around Iran, the more understandable become the political motives behind the latest American-Israeli predictions about a higher likelihood of a Karabakh war.”
“The United States is making haste to get the roads leading to Central Asia through the South Caucasus open, so a resolution of the Armenian-Turkish and Karabakh issues through simultaneous and coordinated pressures is important for it. And predictions about the likelihood of war are among the methods of putting pressure on the sides. The latest moves by the Turkish foreign minister show that Ankara is doing everything to save the Karabakh precondition. However, the United States is interested no so much in the Karabakh precondition, as much in the fate of the Armenian-Turkish protocols.”
In an interview with “Iravunk de-facto” Artsvik Minasian, a member of parliament from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), says that the current regional developments provide grounds to suppose that the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a priority agenda issue for superpowers. “Besides both societies are not ready to perceive the settlement. In Azerbaijan, Armenia as well as in Karabakh there is an aspiration to get the maximum. No negotiation can solve this maximum task. The policy of mutual concessions will not satisfy either society. The solution can be only by means of a war. The likelihood of war is now higher than before the Armenian-Turkish initiative. From this point of view the task of the superpowers will be not to foist a solution, thus making the sides face the prospect of a new war, but to freeze the situation and then proceed with negotiations,” he adds.
“Hraparak” reports on a recent gang fight between semi-criminal groups in two provincial Armenian communities. It cites eyewitnesses as saying that the clashes involving more than 200 people escalated so that the local police were unable to stop it.
(Aghasi Yenokian)
The editorial also draws a parallel between the song contest and politics and writes that “if fraud was indeed committed in this case, then like other cases of fraud it will remain undisclosed.” “The question here is whether the losing party will seek justice in the Constitutional Court and whether the court will recognize [national selection winner] Eva Rivas’s victory with reservations or without,” the paper concludes sarcastically.
“Golos Armenii” writes that “the reaction of Armenian politicians to the anti-Armenian draft resolution of the OSCE on the involvement of the army in the post-election developments in Armenia in 2008 was not difficult to predict.”
“The parties of the governing coalition and even the currently opposition Dashnak party in their own words treat not seriously the document authored by a Swedish politician lobbied by Azerbaijan. We will remind you that the work of the parliamentary ad hoc committee conducting the probe into the post-election clashes for a year and a half did not produce the results that were expected from it… No answer was provided as to whose actions led to ten deaths. Now it is very easy to blame everything on the biased attitude of foreigners, on Azerbaijani-Turkish lobbyist groups, on the support to these lobbyists given by radical oppositionists from inside Armenia. These are, of course, real factors, but they do not disclose the essence of the issue.”
“Hayots Ashkhar” asserts that “the tighter the circle is around Iran, the more understandable become the political motives behind the latest American-Israeli predictions about a higher likelihood of a Karabakh war.”
“The United States is making haste to get the roads leading to Central Asia through the South Caucasus open, so a resolution of the Armenian-Turkish and Karabakh issues through simultaneous and coordinated pressures is important for it. And predictions about the likelihood of war are among the methods of putting pressure on the sides. The latest moves by the Turkish foreign minister show that Ankara is doing everything to save the Karabakh precondition. However, the United States is interested no so much in the Karabakh precondition, as much in the fate of the Armenian-Turkish protocols.”
In an interview with “Iravunk de-facto” Artsvik Minasian, a member of parliament from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), says that the current regional developments provide grounds to suppose that the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a priority agenda issue for superpowers. “Besides both societies are not ready to perceive the settlement. In Azerbaijan, Armenia as well as in Karabakh there is an aspiration to get the maximum. No negotiation can solve this maximum task. The policy of mutual concessions will not satisfy either society. The solution can be only by means of a war. The likelihood of war is now higher than before the Armenian-Turkish initiative. From this point of view the task of the superpowers will be not to foist a solution, thus making the sides face the prospect of a new war, but to freeze the situation and then proceed with negotiations,” he adds.
“Hraparak” reports on a recent gang fight between semi-criminal groups in two provincial Armenian communities. It cites eyewitnesses as saying that the clashes involving more than 200 people escalated so that the local police were unable to stop it.
(Aghasi Yenokian)