Category Archives: Uncategorised

Azerbaijan to invest in Bulgarian gas storage

SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR could soon enter the Bulgarian gas storage market, a potential bridgehead for its plans to construct a pipeline that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to European consumers.

Bulgarian officials said that SOCAR has expressed interest in participating in the expansion of the Chiren storage facility. The government plans a €200m investment to double its capacity to 1b cubic metres. The underground gas storage facility at Chiren links up with Bulgaria’s network, making it a potentially valuable asset for SOCAR, which agreed to send 1b cubic metres of gas to Bulgaria by 2020. Azerbaijan wants to pump gas to

Europe via the so-called Southern Gas Corridor, a network of pipelines from Azerbaijan through Turkey, Greece and Albania to Italy.

Bulgaria hopes to receive Azerba- ijani gas through the construction of the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria which will feed off the TANAP pipe- line that will form the backbone of the Southern Gas Corridor stretching from Azerbaijan to Italy.

Azerbaijan views Europe as an important next client for its gas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Georgia’s Orthodox Church

OCT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – >> I read earlier in the Bulletin that the Pope flew over to Tbilisi but wasn’t warmly received. This surprised me as I thought the Pope was generally greeted by massive grounds wherever he went.

>> You’re right. Georgians gave Pope Francis a luke- warm welcome. Staff at the Vatican had probably been expecting a far more friendly touch down but then Georgia has a complicated relationship with the Catholic Church.

>> So what actually happened in Georgia?

>> Essentially, although the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, greeted Pope Francis, he was made to feel unwelcome. Many Orthodox priests told their congregations to stay away from his Papal mass on the Saturday and a hardcore group of Orthodox believers followed him around shouting various slogans against the Catholic Church.

>> Right, the sound fairly active? Outside the Pope’s visit, is the Orthodox Church influential in Georgia?

>> Yes, very. Around 80% of Georgians identify themselves as Orthodox. The Patriarch, Ilia II, is one of the most powerful men in the country and is often turned to in times of crisis. He has brokered deals between rival political leaders. Presidents and prime ministers are careful to be seen attending church and meeting with the Patriarch. He is also a staunch conservative, holding views that represent those of many in Georgia.

The Georgian Orthodox is anti-gay rights and same sex marriage, for example. There are often Orthodox priests leading anti-gay rights marches.

And the Georgian Orthodox Church an incredibly influential body. Public opinion surveys consistently rank it as the most trusted public body in Georgia.

>> I see. But is the Orthodox Church involved any way in Georgia’s foreign policy?

>> Not officially. Georgia’s constitution states that the Orthodox Church is fully independent of the state. That said it has played a major role on occasion. After Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in 2008 over the disputed region of South Ossetia, it was the Patriarch who was able to reach out to the Russian side and begin to mend relations. He was in Moscow towards the end of 2008 to see the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexey II, for the last time. While he was there he also met up with Dmitri Medvedev, then Russia’s president. This was considered a vital first step towards pulling Georgia and Russia together.

>> So, Ilia II is definitely a bit of an all-rounded then. He seems to play a major role in domestic affairs, influencing public opinion, and also happy to deal in high level diplomacy in international affairs.

>> He’s certainly a major factor in modern Georgia. Watch out for his reaction to any issues before or after the parliamentary election in Georgia on Oct. 8.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

EuroChem to increase production in Kazakhstan

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Switzerland-based fertiliser producer EuroChem said it would increase investment in its phosphate mine in southern Kazakhstan to try to drive up production. EuroChem produces 640,000 tonnes of phosphate rock annually at its Zhambyl mine. It wants to more than double this.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Kazakh government defuses worker unrest

ALMATY, OCT. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Betraying its nervousness over labour disputes, the Kazakh government stepped in to end a strike by 2,000 workers at an oil company near Zhanaozen in the west of the country.

To end the strike, the government promised the company employing the workers a major contract boost which will allow it to increase salaries — meeting the strikers’ demands.

The strike over pay had been building, sporadically, for weeks but had only been supported by a few dozen people, some of them on hunger strikes. It was only on Sept. 30, when 2,000 strikers rallied for the first time demanding higher salaries from Burgylau, a local subcontractor for the state-owned Ozenmunaigas, that the government sent senior offi- cials to defuse what to them had become an intolerable scenario.

Zhanaozen, a scruffy town built in Soviet times to house labourers working on nearby oil fields, is seared into the Kazakh national conscience.

In 2011 clashes between protesters and police killed at least 15 people and plunged the government into perhaps its most serious post-Soviet crisis. Hundreds of riot police poured into the region and emergency powers were imposed. Eventually, the government was forced to guarantee jobs and wages in the region.

Importantly the clashes in Zhanaozen in 2011 have defined Kazakh labour disputes. Since then big business and the government have shown an unwillingness to face down worker demands.

And so it proved again. A Burgylau executive had told workers that the company was unable to pay workers any more because it wasn’t making a profit. This changed, though, after a visit from Alik Aidarbayev, governor of the western Mangistau region, who offered Burgylau another $18m worth of contracts in exchange for meeting the workers’ demands.

Burgylau is a subsidiary of KazPet- roDrilling.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Uzbek President urges modernisation of power station

SEPT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a visit to the Karakalpakstan region in west Uzbekistan, acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev urged the local administration to speed up the modernisation of the region’s biggest thermal power station, Takhiatash. The upgrade scheme is being part funded by a $300m loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and will boost overall production to 930MW from the current 730MW.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Gazprom to apply discount to Kyrgyzstan

OCT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gazprom Kyrgyzstan representatives said they would apply a 1% discount on gas supplies to households and industries to reflect the strengthening of the som currency. Gazprom Kyrgyzstan, a subsidiary of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom which owns Kyrgyzstan’s gas distribution network, can revise gas tariffs on a monthly basis. Gas prices have become a political issue in the region, often sparking protests against proposed price rises.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Pope faces hostility on trip to Georgia

TBILISI, OCT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pope Francis endured a diplomatically tough trip to Tbilisi and Baku, his second to the South Caucasus this year.

In Tbilisi, hostile Orthodox Christian followers tried to unsettle the Pope by heckling him and waving banners with anti-Catholic slogans outside each of his various meetings.

“The Vatican is a spiritual aggressor” and “Pope, arch-heretic, you are not welcome in Orthodox Georgia,” their posters read according to media reports.

The Orthodox Church, suspicious that the Pope’s real reason for making the visit was not to improve relations but to recruit followers, also called for a boycott of a Papal mass planned for a football stadium.

“As long as there are dogmatic differences between our churches, Orthodox believers will not participate in their prayers,” the Georgian Orthodox Church said on its website.

Only a few thousand people turned up to the mass, leaving the stadium looking empty.

Earlier the Pope had met with both the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II and President Giorgi Margvelashvili.

The Pope then visited Azerbaijan, a country with a tiny Catholic community, where he held talks with President Ilham Aliyev aimed at improving diplomatic relations.

Pope Francis said that in both Yerevan, which he visited earlier this year, and Baku he had urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to hold peace talks.

“Armenia is a nation with open borders, it has problems with Azerbaijan and should go to an international tribunal if dialogue and negotiation is a no-go,” he was quoted as telling media.

Azerbaijan and Armenia are officially at war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh which is controlled by Armenia-backed forces.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Kyrgyz President says he had heart attack

OCT. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said that he had had a heart attack while en route to New York for a UN meeting and that he was back at work after undergoing medical care. On Sept. 19, Mr Atambayev cancelled the trip to the UN Annual Assembly after suffering chest pains during a layover in Turkey. He later flew to Russia for medical care before returning to Bishkek at the weekend.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Uzbek media reports reappearance of Gulnara on Twitter

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek local media reported the reappearance of Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of the late Uzbek President Islam Karimov, on Twitter. Ms Karimova, whose account is not confirmed, has been under house arrest since 2014. Through the new account, Zabitaya1972, which roughly translates into ‘beaten’ followed by her year of birth, Ms Karimova allegedly published a letter denouncing acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev of excluding her from her father’s funeral in September.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Uzbekistan plans to create new e-library

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – LG CNS, the IT provider owned by Korea’s LG, signed a $12.1m contract with Uzbekistan’s ministry of IT and communications to build a national online electronic library system. The project will be started at the Navoi national library and will then be expanded to education institutions, government agencies and airports.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)