Category Archives: Uncategorised

World Bank mulls Tajik hydropower help

MAY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank said it would consider funding the modernisation of the Nurek hydropower plant in central Tajikistan. Located 70km east of Dushanbe, the 3,000 MW plant at Nurek produces around 70% of Tajikistan’s total electricity output. Earlier in May, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon said it needs an investment of more than 4.7bn somoni (around $600m).

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

People protest in Georgian mine

MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Residents of Ieli, a small village in the Svaneti region in the north of Georgia, demonstrated against a gold mining company that had started excavation work in the area. Dozens of protesters said that they didn’t believe that Optical System, a St Kitts and Nevis-based company, had a valid licence. The local government later showed that the company had been given an exploration licence in 2005.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Turkmen President pardons prisoners

MAY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov pardoned 853 prisoners to mark the Day of the Constitution. The presidential grace is a routine gesture that shows Mr Berdymukhamedov’s control over the essential institutions in the country. According to official media, around 4,000 people have been freed in the past year through presidential pardons.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Armenia to discuss Chinese drinks market

MAY 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Armenian ministry of agriculture sent a delegation to China to discuss a trade agreement aimed at opening the potentially lucrative Chinese market to alcoholic drinks from Armenia. Armenian wine exports tripled in volume between 2008 and 2014 and Armenian brandy is revered in the FSU. Last year, in a reflection of the current economic downturn, volumes fell by 31.5%.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Currency woes in Uzbekistan, Georgia and Armenia

MAY 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – An IMF paper on the state of money markets across the South Caucasus and Central Asia said that most currencies are still overvalued against the US dollar, despite depreciations that have taken place over the past 18 months. The IMF highlighted that in January the Uzbek sum was 30% above its market value, and the Georgian lari was around 15% overvalued. The Armenian dram was the only currency that, according to the IMF, traded below its value.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Turkish officials detain dozens with Kyrgyz passport

MAY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Border authorities in Turkey detained dozens of ethnic Uyghurs who were trying to fly to Northern Cyprus with forged Kyrgyz passports. Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group predominantly from the west China region of Xinjiang, neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. They have said that they are being persecuted by Chinese officials.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Georgia changes rules for Constitutional Court

MAY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Opposition MPs in Georgia have protested against what they said was a rushed reform of the Constitutional Court that will curtail its power and subvert it to the government.

The ruling Georgian Dream coalition set the final vote on the bill for Saturday May 14, just 14 hours after it had sparked furious arguments in parliament.

The opposition, led by the United National Movement party (UNM), the party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, said the bill was in effect a punishment against the Constitutional Court for ruling against the Georgian Dream several times in the past few months.

Shalva Shavgulidze, opposition MP for the Free Democrats, said: “The only purpose of this bill is for the ruling party to gain control over the Constitutional Court.”

These charges were rejected by MPs from the Georgian Dream. MP Eka Beselia said that the changes were needed to reduce the previous UNM government’s influence over it. “This Court has to be fully liberated from political influences,” she said.

The bill, now adopted, raised the quorum for the 9-member Court from five to six, effectively making it more difficult for the Court to veto laws supported by the government.

Democracy lobby groups have said that this will make the Court a less effective check on the government’s executive powers.

Under the new law the minimum numbers of judges needed to make a decision was also raised to seven from six, again making it more complicated to pass judgements.

In September, just a few weeks before what will be a fiercely fought parliamentary election, President Giorgi Margvelashvili, will appoint new judges to the Court after two of the sitting judges reach the end of their 10-year terms.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Azerbaijani and Georgian delegation to attend ceremony TAP construction start

MAY 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Georgia sent a delegation to Greece for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of a network of pipelines that will pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, in a show of support for a project that the European Union considers vitally important.

Georgia’s PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili and Azerbaijan’s deputy PM Yagub Eyyubov attended the inauguration event with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, European Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and Special Envoy at the US State Department Amos Hochstein.

“Georgia, as a transit country, reiterates its commitments to the diversification of energy supplies to Europe and expresses supports for existing and future energy projects connected to the Southern Gas Corridor,” Mr Kvirikashvili said.

The so-called Southern Gas Corridor, a network of pipelines, is scheduled to be completed in 2019 and will send 16b cubic metres of gas to Europe every year.

TAP will ship 10b cubic metres from Greece’s border with Turkey across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. From there it will be pumped to central Europe.

Mr Kvirikashvili said the project “creates a new dimension for economic cooperation and for the security in the region.”

Azerbaijan is an integral part of the project. The Corridor’s pipelines will be filled with gas from its major fields, chiefly Shah Deniz.

Azerbaijan is also invested in the construction and management of the pipelines. SOCAR, the state energy company, owns 20% of TAP. BP (20%), Snam (20%), Fluxys (16%), Enagas (16%) and Axpo (5%) consti- tute the remaining shareholders.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents meet and extend Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president, and Serzh Sargsyan, Armenia’s president, agreed to maintain a ceasefire over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region where violent clashes erupted at the beginning of April (May 16).

This was the first time the two presidents had met since four days of clashes killed dozens of people and alarmed international policymakers.

Diplomats from the US, Russia and France, including US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, also participated in the meeting in Vienna.

“The Presidents reiterated their commitment to the ceasefire and the peaceful settlement of the conflict,” the mediators said in a joint statement.

Mr Aliyev and Mr Sargsyan agreed to meet again in June to track the process of the settlement of the conflict.

The importance of the meeting was not the bland statement but the fact that the two presidents were already meeting and talking. The violence had threatened to destabilise the South Caucasus region, which hosts vital pipelines pumping gas to Europe and borders both Russia and Iran, worrying international leaders and policymakers.

Nagorno-Karabakh is officially part of Azerbaijan, but also home to a large Armenian population. An estimated 30,000 people died in fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. Only a shaky 1994 UN-brokered ceasefire held the peace.

An Armenia-backed army now controls Nagorno-Karabakh, although Azerbaijan has also said it will retake the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)

Editorial: European gas

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Construction work on the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has begun. It will link the Azerbaijani and Turkish sections of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor to Greece and Italy.

The Southern Gas Corridor is the EU and the US’ pet project and will bring Azerbaijani gas to Europe.

This is the culmination of years of planning and fending off rival projects, Russian and European.

But the fundamentals of the energy sector have changed dramatically in the past couple of years. The oil price collapse means that profit margins have dropped through the floor, making it near impossible to invest in major infrastructure projects.

That is unless you’re working on the Southern Gas Corridor. The point is not that the Southern Gas Corridor is more profitable than other pipelines, it isn’t, but that politics is more important than economics on this project.

The drivers of the project want to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russia for gas.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 281, published on May 20 2016)