NEWS.am breaking news in a video: 23.10.2018

PARLIAMENT FAILS TO ADOPT ELECTORAL CODE AMENDMENTS

The Armenian parliament has failed to pass the bill package of Electoral Code amendments.

56 Members of Parliament voted in favor of adopting the bill, and three voted against.

63 votes were required for the bill to be adopted.

Most of the Republican Party (RPA) faction MPs did not attend the voting in an apparent boycott.

Only 59 MPs were in attendance and even if theoretically all would’ve voted in favor the bill still would fail to pass.

YELK TO NOMINATE PASHINYAN AS PM CANDIDATE

The “Way Out” (Yelk) Faction of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia will nominate a candidate for PM, Gevorg Gorgisyan, secretary of the faction, noted.

“The consultation with lawyers prompted that we have to nominate a candidate for Prime Minister,” he said. “[And] we will nominate the candidacy of [acting PM] Nikol Pashinyan.”

Deadline for the NA factions to nominate PM candidates was Tuesday 6pm.

ARMENIA LEGISLATURE TO DISCUSS ELECTION LAW DRAFT AMENDMENTS

The bill on making amendments to the Electoral Code of Armenia will be debated on at the National Assembly (NA) on October 29, for the second time.

Naira Zohrabyan, a member of the NA “Tsarukyan” Faction, on Tuesday told reporters in parliament that the respective special session on that day will kick off at 11am.

“With 35 signatures [of MPs], we will submit this package to the [NA] secretariat,” she added, “which means that we will have a special [parliament] session on Monday [October 29].”

The “Tsarukyan” and “Way Out” (Yelk) factions in parliament had launched the signature campaign to convene a special session on October 29.

BOY, 13, RECEIVES IT EDUCATIONAL AWARD

A solemn ceremony of awarding State IT Educational Awards was held in Yerevan on Tuesday.

According to Armenian acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, freedom is an important component on the road to success.

“Freedom is the main achievement of the revolution. In our cutting-edge environment, it is almost impossible to achieve progress without political, economic and internal freedom,” he said.

A total of 43 people, including 25 students and 18 pupils, became the laureates of the State Educational Award in the field of IT, while only 4 people were awarded for Grand Prix. The senior engineer of the Synopsys Armenia company Rafael Grigoryan was awarded the State prize.

UKRAINE FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST ARMENIA

Ukraine has launched complaints at the World Trade Organization to challenge anti-dumping duties imposed by Armenia and Kyrgyzstan on certain types of Ukrainian steel pipes, documents published by the WTO showed on Monday, Reuters reported.

Ukraine said the two countries, both members of the Russia-dominated Eurasian Economic Union, should have phased out duties that were “higher than necessary, erroneous and based on deficient rulings, procedures and provisions”.

EIB, ARMENIA'S CB SIGN AGREEMENT

The European Investment Bank (EIB) continues encouraging the sustainable financing of the private sector in Armenia.

The Central Bank of Armenia said it was signed a 50 million Euro loan agreement with EIB with the purpose of funding SME projects.

Loans will be mainly provided aimed at encouraging exports, and implementing tourism, agriculture and agricultural reprocessing projects.