Edgar, 17, and his 20-year old sister Lala have fourth-grade educations. Attending school is an unattainable luxury for them. As is having a heated apartment. Warmth is a dream.

This family, taking shelter in a shabby room of a ruined hostel on Atarbekyan street in Etchmiadsin is a victim of interest money. (In the 1990s, many people borrowed money to start businesses that went broke. They covered their debts by selling their apartments and went to live on the streets.)

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Court hearings resumed today in the static-laced legal conversation between the poorly-served telephone clients of Armenia, the Government of the Republic and the owners of the string-in-tin-can outfit that passes for phone service here.

Unless our Internet connection - also brought to us by the string and can deal - is too slow to get this story to you, here's a look back at how this day was reached . .

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Last year started with tragedy for the Yerevan Zoo, but ended with more animals than before and with plans of animal matrimony.

Four predators at the zoo died last January after eating meat poisoned by anthrax, prompting a municipal investigation and criticism of zoo personnel.

"The past year of the goat, I can say was both a good and a bad year for us," says zoo director Sahak Abovyan (who has a fondness for wearing ties with brightly-colored animal images on them). "But at the end of the year we managed to fill the places of the dead animals by bringing several instead of one."

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On the success of a summer time event last year, and at the suggestion of the president of Armenia, about 350 young adults will gather in Tsakhkadzor next week for "Baze Winter", a series of sporting and cultural competition.

"In fact Winter Baze wasn't planned. It was brought into life at the moment when at the closing ceremony of Baze 2003 the president of the republic suggested an idea: 'Why don't you organize winter baze?'," says head of the press service of All Armenian Youth Fund Astghik Avetisyan.

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