PRESS REVIEW, DECEMBER 12, 2001

The daily Azg reports that hundreds of ordinary Armenians, government ministers and foreign diplomats joined on Tuesday mourners across the world to commemorate the three-month anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States at an open-air ceremony in Yerevan. It quotes the US ambassador in Yerevan John Ordway as saying that "I will never forget seeing all of you here this evening, three months to the day after this horrible event, with your candles lighted in the display of hope." A story in the daily Haykakan Zhamanak suggests that the chairman of the Armenian Democratic Liberal party (ADL) Rouben Mirzakhanian, the strongest advocate of the acting president Kocharian, may once again be ousted from the party if the chairman of the People°s Party of Armenia Stepan Demirchian, who is visiting now the USA at the invitation of one of the Diaspora ADL chapters, could prove that he would be the next president of Armenia. To substantiate this the daily says that the ADL is the party that always sides with acting presidents. The daily Haykakan Zhamanak also reports that the chief military prosecutor°s office is preparing to arrest a number of senior military officials who are suspected of abuse of power. The move follows after a story in the daily°s December 8 issue that said that some $29 million were misappropriated by high ranking officers. The daily Hayastani Hanrapetutiun reports that the newly elected chairwoman of Georgian parliament Nino Burjanadze arrived in Yerevan on Tuesday on a two-day official visit aimed at boosting contacts between the legislative bodies of the two neighboring states. "I consider Armenia to be a really friendly country," she told reporters on arrival. "It is very essential that our relationship remain as friendly and cordial as it has always been." The daily Azg complains of Armenian mass media which, it says, is politicized to the extreme degree. In theory mass media are created to serve the public and express its opinion, but most pages in the Armenian newspapers, TV programs are filled with official documents, draft parliaments bills and official information, a difficult to digest "waste" for ordinary readers. The daily Azg also reports that the Armenian Catholicos Karekin II was awarded the title of Legion of Honor Commander by France°s President Chirac. The semi-weekly Novoye Vremya reports that Ashot Grigorian, the head of an energy distributing network in Armenian province of Armavir and the brother of the deputy defense minister Manvel Gregorian, is arrested on charges of embezzling a total of 500 million Armenian drams.