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Editorial: Small hydro in Armenia

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Data from Armenia has shown that small hydro power stations now generate a significant amount of the country’s power.

Of course this could be a good thing, reducing Armenia’s dependency on its aging nuclear power station. It also needs to be viewed with a degree of concern.

Many of these power stations actually do more harm than good to the environment. They are often built in fragile parts of the eco-system without much, if any, planning. They can damage and harm the environment.

And there is a whiff of corruption surrounding them or at least nepotism. Many of these small hydro-power stations are owned or linked to, members of parliament and even government.

Armenia needs to impose proper oversight on the sector, building up trust in its intentions. If it is properly regulated, small hydro-power stations could be a benefit to the environment and to ordinary Armenians. If it isn’t, it’ll be a blight on the environment and on the country’s governance reputation.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

US sends military to Georgia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan

MARCH 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are among the three most dependent countries on US aid to pay for their military, the eurasianet.org website reported by quoting a Washington lobby group. In 2014, Georgia received $158m of US military aid, out of a total budget of $387m; Tajikistan received $29m of US aid out of $104m in total and Kyrgyzstan received $90m out of a total military budget of $252m.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Editorial: NPLs in Kazakhstan

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Women banging pots, blowing whistles and wearing grey capes in the streets of Almaty last January alarmed observers.

They were protesting about mortgages and how difficult it was to repay these loans after a devaluation of the tenge. In other words, this was yet another alarm bell about non-performing loans in Kazakhstan.

The country was battered with toxic loans in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/8 and some banks, directly or indirectly, asked for help from the government.

And the government has only just started to offload these banks — think BTA and Kazkommertsbank’s merger last year.

Now, though, new data suggests that there may be another round of dodgy debt to deal with. This time the government needs to act early to stop borrowers from tipping the fragile banking system into the red again. It has the funds and it now also has the experience. This time round, there are few excuses for the Kazakh government and the Central Bank.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Azerbaijan’s row over weapons

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian deputy PM Igor Rogozin flew to Baku to meet with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev for talks over a shipment of weapons which Azerbaijan is apparently refusing to pay for, media reported. It was unclear if Azerbaijan didn’t want to pay for the weapons, as a form of protest over military aid Russia has given to its enemy Armenia, or whether it couldn’t pay because of the worsening impact of the economic slowdown.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Sasol considers project cut in Uzbekistan

MARCH 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Due to sustained low oil prices, South Africa’s Sasol is considering dropping its gas-to-liquids project in Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, Sasol operates jointly with Malaysia’s Petronas and state-owned Uzbekneftegaz. The project cost stands at around $5.6b. Sasol said it will make a final decision on the project in the first half of the year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Interest rates rise in Azerbaijan

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to 7% from 5% to support its manat currency, the second interest rate increase in less than a month. It increased rates on Feb. 15 to 5% from 3%. The manat currency has lost 50% of its value in the past year. This is the highest rate since 2009.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgia PM wants constitution to block gay marriages

MARCH 8 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said he wanted to write into the national constitution that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, a thinly disguised attempt to woo conservative voters ahead of a parliamentary election in October.

Georgian society is broadly conservative and anti-gay rallies have been strongly supported over the last few years. Gay rights rallies have been attacked.

Mr Kvirikashvili’s Georgian Dream coalition is facing a tough battle to win another term in office.

It has tried to canvass votes from Georgia’s conservative base by looking for support from the influential Georgian Orthodox Church. The Church is anti-gay rights.

“We have a pending initiative that would guarantee the protection of the sacred institution of marriage, via the constitution,” media quoted Mr Kvirikashvili as saying.

This would mean changing the constitution to ensure that marriage is only possible between a man and a woman.

He appeared to be responding to an initiative by Georgian civil rights lawyer Giorgi Tatishvili who has been lobbying for same-sex marriage.

Importantly for Georgia, the EU has highlighted its conservative views over gas rights and other civil issues as a potential stumbling block for its integration into the EU.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Armenian Coca Cola disagrees with state comission

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Coca Cola Hellenic Bottling, the Armenian distributor of soft drinks, said it disagreed with the State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition which imposed a 50m dram ($102,000) fine on it for unfair competition last week. Coca Cola Hellenic said it will challenge the fine in court.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Editorial: Georgia’s constitution

MARCH 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Can it really be acceptable for Georgia’s PM to ask for the constitution be altered to block gay marriages? He wants, in effect, to subvert the country’s constitution to match his own beliefs.

This is wrong. It is not up to the PM or the government to tinker with a national constitution when it feels like it.

And it feels even more sullied because this is an election year. The suspicion is that Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili sees this as a vote winning ploy, a tool to woo Georgia’s important conservative base.

The Georgian Dream coalition, Mr Kvirikashvili’s party, has a reputation for going after the conservative vote and this very much feels as if it is playing up to this reputation. Georgia’s Constitutional Court should stand up to him and tell him to get on with the job of governing the country rather than trying to turn the national constitution into a political football.

For observers, Mr Kvirikashvili’s comments about the constitution should put them on warning about just how vicious this up and coming election campaign is likely to be.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)

Georgian IS commander gets injured

MARCH 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tarkhan Batirashvili, a Georgian citizen who has become one of the most senior ISIS commanders, has either been killed or seriously injured in a US air strike. The US military said that their air-strike had killed Batirashvili, described as IS’s minister of war, although IS later reported that he had been injured. Georgians from its Pankisi Gorge region which borders Chechnya to the north have been joining IS.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 271, published on March 11 2016)