Reporters without borders: Armenia advances positions
Reporters without borders international watchdog organization has released Press Freedom Index 2010. According to the index, Armenia has advanced and is running 101st among 178 countries.
North European countries of Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as Austria, Estonia and Ireland share first places, with New Zealand being the only non-European country running among top 10.
Ruanda, Yemen, China, Sudan, Syria, Birma, Turkmenistan, Iran, North Korea, Eritrea are among countries traditionally ending last in the list.
Estonia (9), Lithuania (11) and Latvia (30) are the only post-Soviet states included in “free” country list.
The other post-Soviet states like Moldova (75), Georgia (99) and Armenia (101) are qualified as “countries with some problems”.
The remaing post-Soviet countries are running as follows: Tajikistan (115), Ukraine (131), Russia (140), Azerbaijan (152), Belarus (154), Kyrgyzstan (159), Kazakhstan, (162), Uzbekistan (163) and Turkmenistan (176).
As regards Armenia’s neighbors, Georgia is leading at 99th horizontal. Azerbaijan, Turkey (138) and Iran (175) are ending among the last. During the year Armenia’s all 4 neighbors have stepped backwards in the press freedom sphere, while Armenia has advanced both in terms of the index and its position in the list, experts say.