FEB. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hungarian low-cost airline company Wizz Air said it will open an operational base at Kutaisi airport in central Georgia. This will be Wizz Air’s first base in the South Caucasus. Wizz Air intends to use Kutaisi as its hub for new regional destinations.
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 1 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rakhmon ordered Parliament to rename a number of cities, regions and a reservoir to give them more of a Tajik flavour.
Since becoming an independent state in 1991, the Tajik government has been keen to build up a back-story for the country. It replaced most of the Russian place names with names mostly derived from the Samanid Empire (819-919), a common tactic in Central Asia which had not been independent countries before 1991.
In 2007 Rakhmon also dropped the Russian suffix ‘ov’ from his name.
His press office said: “The renaming of districts and cities promotes national values and a sense of dignity. It is especially important to educate younger generations about the rich culture of the ancestors of the modern statehood of Tajik people.”
But not everybody thinks it is such a good idea.
Dushanbe taxi driver Odilbek, 38, said it was a waste of money. “These people do not understand what they are doing,” he said. “We have more serious problems and this is a waste of money. People will call the cities by their old names anyway.”
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
JAN. 29 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Nur Otan, the political party of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has packed its list of candidates for next month’s parliamentary election with sportsmen, singers and other household names — reflecting both its status as the establishment party and also its drive to boost its popular appeal.
Candidates for the 127-seat lower house of parliament include champion boxer Gennady Golovkin, Olympic weighlifting gold medal winner Ilya Ilin, and pop stars Zhanar Dugalova and Kairat Nurtas as well as Dariga Nazarbayeva, Mr Nazarbayev’s daughter, and the ex- mayor of Almaty Akhmetzhan Yesimov.
Kazakh political analyst, Adil Nurmakov, said that although Nur Otan had used this strategy previously, they were employing it particularly heavily for this election.
“It is an attempt by the ruling party to position itself as a popular force among celebrities truly loved by the people. I see it as a primitive electoral technique. It has been used numerous times in the past,” he said.
Last month, Mr Nazarbayev called a parliamentary election for March 20, a year earlier than it had been scheduled for, officially because the current parliament had fulfilled its remit.
Analysts, though, said it was called early to head off civil strife as the economic climate worsens. On the streets of Almaty, reaction to the celebratory packed party list was mixed.
“Sportsmen are also people. If the Parliament has sportsmen there will be more discipline,” said Maksat, a sales distributor.
Others were less impressed.
“A deputy should be a person with special education not just a regular boxer or a singer,” said Zinaida Trinojenko, a PR specialist. “It is a delusion.”
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukahmedov wants to tinker with Turkmenistan’s constitution to strengthen its commitment to neutrality, official media reported. Last month, in a similar move, Mr Berdymukhamedov approved a new military doctrine which reasserted Turkmenistan’s neutrality. Turkmenistan’s neutrality has been challenged by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran is emerging from its economic exile with force and its impact is being felt across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
The new petrol export deal with Tajikistan, together with recent deals with Kazakhstan’s Air Astana and the negotiations with Armenia and Georgia over gas supplies, is a testimony of the importance that countries in the region give to Iran as a trade partner.
Iran is still a net importer of gasoline but it is now close to opening a new 18m tonnes refinery on the Persian Gulf coast, which officials say “will change the gasoline balance in Iran” and could possibly turn the country into a net exporter.
For countries like Tajikistan this is good news as it means that Iran could become a supplier of oil for both Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Tajikistan has previously bought all its refined petrol from Russia. With Iran’s re-emergence onto the scene this over-reliance on its former colonial master is reduced, giving Tajikistan a genuine choice on where to buys its petrol.
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(Editorial from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 5 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Frustrated Kyrgyz businessmen and company owners are blaming a worsening economy on joining the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) last year.
The criticism of the EEU, whether it is accurate or not, is a major problem for Kyrgyzstan’s leadership which dragged the country into the trade bloc despite deep-rooted unease from ordinary Kyrgyz. Also in the EEU are Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia.
In Bishkek, Azamat, who was selling cars, said Kyrgyzstan had aligned itself with the wrong countries.
“While we are in the Customs Union we will have nothing to develop,” he said.
The Customs Union is the old name for the EEU, which analysts have said was dreamt up by the Kremlin to extend its political control.
Western sanctions and a collapse in oil prices have tipped Russia’s economy into a recession. It has cancelled overseas projects, including a hydropower plant in Kyrgyzstan, and remittance flows from Kyrgyz workers in Moscow have fallen by around 40%. Inflation is rising in Kyrgyzstan and economic growth rates are being cut – a familiar story across the region.
Emil Umetaliev, a former Kyrgyz economy minister who now owns a travel company, told The Conway Bulletin that the EEU has been a major hindrance to small and medium sized companies, rather than the help that had been promised.
“The Eurasian economic union tends to organise countries’ interdependence on resources,” he said. “It does not encourage small and medium enterprises to develop and does not have a friendly investment climate.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) -Tajikistan’s Constitutional Court approved changes to the country’s constitution that removed a limit on the number of times that a person can be president. The amendments will mean that Pres. Emomali Rakhmon is now eligible to run for president again at the next election in 2020. He has been in power since the mid-1990s. Tajik lawmakers are also looking into changing the constitution to allow people under the age of 35 to run for president. This would allow Mr Rakhmon’s son to stand in 2020. Analysts have said that Mr Rakhmon is hedging his bets before he decides if he wants to run or not.
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 2 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin)– Georgia took a major step towards introducing a law that will fine people for insulting religion after Parliament’s committee for human rights said that it supported a bill that criminalises blasphemy.
The bill has divided the country, pitting conservative religious groups who say the law is needed to dampen an increase in hate speech against liberal groups who argue the bill will limit free speech.
The parliamentary human rights committee decided that a law was needed to protect all religions from abuse.
Eka Beselia, head of the committee, said that many European countries already have a similar law.
On the streets of Tbilisi, young Georgians generally thought that the law was unnecessary. Otar Babukhadia, 23, a student said: “I think it’s just a popularity contest for the upcoming elections. It won’t affect anything, it’s just a formality.”
The Orthodox Church, a powerful institution in Georgia, issued a statement which said that it was not behind the proposed new law but that it did support fining people for insulting religion.
“Although there are frequent cases of insults and use of hate speech against the Church and its leader, the adoption of such a bill has not been our initiative – neither now nor previously,” it said.
The ruling Georgian Dream is close to the Orthodox Church and Salome Minesashvili, a political scientist at the Georgian Institute of Politics in Tbilisi, said that by introducing this law, which will protect the Church from criticism, the party aims to shore up support ahead of a parliamentary election in October.
“When democracy-linked values clash with traditions, Georgians expect the government to prioritise traditions at the expense of freedom.” she said.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
JAN. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The volume of sales of US dollars at kiosks in Kazakhstan rose by $600m in December to $1.7b, media quoted government data as showing. The data underlines the lack of confidence that Kazakhs have in the tenge. It has lost half its value in the past 12 months, a drop linked to a fall in oil prices. The 52% rise in US dollar sales in December was likely due to a sudden rise in tenge’s value.
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(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)
FEB. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank revoked the licence of Texnikabank, one of the country’s largest lenders, and handed back a licence to NBCBank after it said it was looking at a possible merger with a bigger rival.
The moves are part of a wider plan by the Azerbaijani Central Bank to tighten and strengthen Azerbaijan’s commercial banking sector.
The Central Bank said Texnikabank, one of Azerbaijan’s 10 largest banks by assets, did not comply with the minimum capital requirement of 50m manat ($31.3) and the capital adequacy ratio. Texnikabank became the seventh bank in Azerbaijan to lose its licence in the past few weeks.
It later handed NBCBank back its licence after it said that it had entered into negotiations with KredoBank and ParaBank about a possible merger.
Another commercial bank, Caucasus Development Bank, said it intends to merge with Gunay Bank and Atrabank.
Azerbaijan is trying to deal with the fallout from a sharp drop in the price of oil, its main export. This has hit its economy and its currency, the manat, putting increasing pressure on the banking sector.
There are currently 37 commercial banks operating in Azerbaijan.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 266, published on Feb. 5 2016)