The programme on building of the third tailings of Tukhmanuk gold mine caused protest of residents of the nearby Melikghyugh village. 

Dozens of employees of Nairit Plant, which has been idle since April 2010, have made their way to the Armenian President's Palace to demand their salaries payable. 

 President of Armenia, the leader of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, will not attend Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) congress.

Tbilisi. The U.S. Congressmen approach Secretary of State John Kerry to make the NATO enlargement a key priority for the United States and the Alliance for NATO's upcoming Summit. Congressman Michael Turner initiated the letter, which was signed by 42 U.S.  Congressmen, advocates granting of Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Georgia.

Tbilisi. President of RF Vladimir Putin does not exclude a possibility of the meeting with his Georgian counterpart, if he manifests such a wish, RIA Novosti agency reports.

Tbilisi. A delegation of the Georgian Parliament will pay the official visit to Brussels on February 11-12 to attend a sittings of 3 Euronest Committees (European integration via parliamentary dimension). The delegation members will participate in the sessions of the Committees on Human Rights and Democracy, on Energy Safety and Social Issues, on Education, Culture, and the Civil Society. The delegation is headed by Chairman of the Committee on European Integration Viktor Dolidze, the parliamentary press-service reports.

Tbilisi. President of Georgia, Giorgi Margvelashvili, will pay a visit to Azerbaijan on February 12-13, Georgian Mass Media reports with the reference to President's Administration.   

The free of charge medical service in polyclinics seems to fall into oblivion. As Armenia Deputy Health Minister Vahan Pogosyan said at today's press-conference, they are going to introduce the payment system for the laboratory and diagnostic examination in the polyclinics of Yerevan. An idea to charge for services is explained in a rather original way - fighting corruption.

 It is highly possible that we will come to a consensus on the need to move a no confidence resolution against the Government, the head of the parliamentary group of Heritage Party Ruben Hakobyan said after a Wednesday meeting of four groups of the Armenian Parliament – Heritage, Armenian National Congress, Prosperous Armenia and ARFD.

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) sent an open letter to state legislators, and called upon them to "take a stand against foreign interference in American civic life by corrupt Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev," Asbarez reports.  

 President of Armenia, the leader of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, will not attend Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) congress.

 The "pension" scandal in Armenia's National Opera is on the wane. 

 The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is sometimes described as a frozen conflict and this is misleading, as the ceasefire breaches on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops continue, UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Mark Simmonds said on Tuesday in a debate on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the UK parliament.

The employees of the Yerevan Metro have joined the "I Am Against!" movement.

 Armenia's Constitutional Court has rejected the motion by ARFD MP Artsvik Minasyan against articles 8, 14, 37 and 38 of the law on accumulative pensions. By doing this the Court left unchanged its Jan 24 decision.

Opposition MP Nikol Pashinyan and Nagorno-Karabakh war veteran Sasun Mikaelyan are planning to organize a public action to remember the victims of the March 2008 events.

European parliamentarian, Co-Chair of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee Mila Cabrnoch has made a statement concerning the Committee's last meeting that took place in Strasbourg a few days ago.

The draft joint statement proposed by the European Parliament members did not comply with the spirit and letter of equal partnership, Samvel Farmanyan, 
Armenian Co-Chair of the Armenia-EU Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, said at today's press conference.  

As regards the results of the Committee's 14th session on Feb 5-6 in Strasbourg, where the parties failed to coordinate the text of the joint statement, Farmanyan said that the European parliamentarians have some misunderstanding on Armenia's latest foreign political decisions related to the intention to join the Customs Union. 

"According to the Regulations of the Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, such sessions are usually followed by adoption of a statement by the two equal parties to the document, which should have included the Armenia-EU relations, Armenian-Turkish relations and the Karabakh problem", said Farmanyan.

He said that Armenia proposed its own draft statement regarding the Karabakh conflict. European parliamentarians, in turn, proposed their own version. Moreover, the European Co-Chair of the Committee told Farmanyan that the formulations express the joint opinion of all political parties and that the document might not be debated. "Actually, the document should have been adopted by the two equal parties. In this context, the statement that the European partners' version may not be debated runs counter to the logic of equal partnership. Furthermore, the formulations they proposed were 
unacceptable and failed to contribute to peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict. They also could cause some discrepancies", he said. 

When commenting on the accusations of the Armenian Delegation's members who say that Farmanyan took decisions single-handedly, Farmanyan said that he was short of time. "We had very little time to discuss and come to a consensus on the text of the statement. In such situations, the obligation of the head of the Committee is to assume some responsibility for the decisions. And I assumed that responsibility. I consider that the Europeans' document contained formulations running counter to our stance on the Karabakh peace process", he said. He also expressed his readiness to discuss that 
document in professional circles and give clear reasons for his behavior if necessary.

The South Caucasus Railway (SCR) CJSC will intensify the explanatory work with its employees, the company's press service told ArmInfo.  

To note, on Feb 10, a group of employees of SCR CJSC joined the civil initiative "Im Am Against", which protests against introduction of the compulsory accumulative pension system in Armenia. The SCR employees held a picket in front of the administrative building of the company.

The same day SCR CEO Viktor Rebets held a meeting with the initiative group of the picket (20 people). During the meeting, Rebets thoroughly explained to them the content of the pension reform, the course of introduction of the accumulative pension system and the order of its implementation by the employer. Rebets also pointed out similar examples from Russian and European practices. To note, the members of "I Am Against" public initiative were denied the meeting.  

Rebets stressed that the deduced funds are on the accounts of South Caucasus Railway and they will be transferred nowhere until the relevant state structures make a decision on disposal of these funds. "The monthly deductions allow excluding the risk of lump-sum deduction of the amount accumulated since early 2014 from the wages", he stressed. 

He pointed out that in 2013 the wages at the South Caucasus Railway CJSC were increased by 10% amid 5.3% reduction in cargo traffic as compared with 2012. "So, the salary growth rate at SCR is twice as big as the salary growth rates throughout the republic. For the moment, the average salary at SCR is by 40% higher than the average salary throughout the republic", said Rebets. " 

He pointed out that in 2013 the SCA introduced a new remuneration plan, which is designed primarily for young employees. More specifically, the 2,500 young employees who have so far received a bonus of 15% of their wages will now will enjoy a bonus of 25%. 

Following the discussion, Rebets held a teleconference to discuss the issue with the managers of the company's units. The parties agreed that the managers will meet with their teams on Wednesday to explain to them the peculiarities of the pension reforms in Armenia. Rebets will do it at the Sevan unit.

"Today we can say that we created favorable conditions for our employees before our transition to the new pension system, but this does not mean that our managers are no longer obliged to carry out explanatory work among their teams. They must do it on a systematic basis regarding both industrial and social problems," Rebets said.

The meetings with employees will also be attended by representatives of the Trade Union Organization (Dorprofsozh), the Council of Veterans and the Youth Council of the SCR.

The assembly of Armenian tablets (ArmTabs) will be launched in late May 2014 in the Yerevan-based MARS Plant free economic zone, President of ArmTab 
Technology Vahan Shakaryan said at today's conference when replying to ArmInfo's question.  

He said that the production area provided for the project occupies 500 sq m (not 200 sq m as reported earlier). This will allow considerably increasing the output to 100 thsd tablets within the mid-term outlook. He pointed out that the organizations in Armenian Diaspora have already put in their order for 1050 tablets for the representatives of foreign communities.  

Shakaryan said that ArmTabs will cost twice as less as their brand-name analogues and will thereby gain a certain place in the market. He added that ArmTabs are not going to compete with Apple or Samsung. "That kind of approach would simply be a suicide, not a business. We are working under the B2B scheme and our flavor is to be flexible to the corporate customers' offers. The Minno and ArmTab tablets in Armenia will contain various applications meeting the customers' suggestions", he said. Shakaryan also pointed out that Minno and Instigate are negotiating on export deliveries of tablets 
to the United States. The matter concerns the tablets with the Vostan operating system, which has been developed in Armenia and has no analogues.

Shakaryan said that Minno already has sales markets in the United States, Latin America and some post-Soviet republics. Minno's tablets are produced in China, with components designed in the US and Armenia. So as to be good, they were regularly tested by Armenian specialists, which implied additional costs. As a result, Minno decided to move the assembly process from China to Armenia. For this purpose, it set up Technology and Science Dynamics Corp. (TSD), which is supposed to make investments in Armenia and to organize ArmTab's assembly. According to Shakaryan, ArmTab will be sold not only in 
Armenia but also in some neighboring countries.

By Feb 17 www.armtab.org will announce a free tender for ArmTab's design (external, PSP, chip, etc.). The best ideas will be sponsored, with the best specialists to be given jobs in the company. When asked by ArmInfo when ArmTab will be introduced in the national educational system and how much it will cost, Shakaryan said that the tablets will be introduced in 2015 and will be free of charge. The tablets will be distributed at primary schools to be supposedly used by as many as 40,000 children.

ArmTab Technology was set up in 2013 on the basis of the American Minno company by the co-founded of Minno Vahan Shakaryan. In Jan 2014 ArmTab Technology and Armenia's Education and Science Ministry signed a memorandum for using the tablets in the country's educational system, where in 2015 robotics will become a compulsory subject. ArmTab is the first registered company to have been allowed to carry out activities in the Mars Plant's free economic zone, created by Sitronics in 2011. 

The Instigate Group was set up as a training center in 2004 and specializes in designing of electronic and software systems. Currently the group employs 230 specialists, over 80 students and experimenters from Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor, Stepanakert, Goris, Tbilisi and Javakheti region of Georgia.