Category Archives: Uncategorised

Tajik hunt for fugitive minister

SEPT. 11 2015, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s security forces have been scouring rough countryside in a valley 150km from the capital Dushanbe for the country’s most wanted man, General Abduhalim Nazarzoda, a former deputy defence minister.

The authorities accuse Gen. Nazarzoda of masterminding a series of early morning attacks in Dushanbe and a police station at Vahdat, a town 10km away, on Sept. 4 that killed at least nine policemen and 13 gunmen.

In Dushanbe, the authorities blocked access to social media sites and ordered more soldiers to patrol along the streets.

Hoji Said, a local Dushanbe resident, summed up the tense atmosphere in the capital.

“I have not seen so many policemen in Dushanbe,” he said.

Still, despite the extra security, a World Cup football qualifier match between Tajikistan and Australia went ahead. Australia won 3-0.

Gen. Nazarzoda was one of the leaders of the Tajik United Opposition, a coalition that fought against the government in a civil war in the mid-1990s. He fled the country but returned after a UN- brokered peace deal ensured handed him a role in the government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Rox Petroleum’s assets in Kazakhstan downgrade

SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed Roxi Petroleum said it had downgraded the value of its assets in Kazakhstan by 28% after last month’s devaluation of the tenge. Roxi’s main activities are focused in the Mangistau region, west Kazakhstan. Since the announcement, Roxi’s share price has fallen by 12%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Borajet flies to Georgian city

SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a boost for Georgia’s tourist sector, privately-owned Turkish airline Borajet opened a new air route from Istanbul to the Georgian Black Sea resort town of Batumi. Borajet will fly to Batumi three times a week from Istanbul’s second airport. Turkish Airways already flies from Istanbul’s main airport to Batumi.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Kazakh government ditches petrol price controls

SEPT. 4 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government scrapped petrol price controls, another major admission that the market rather than the state is better placed to direct its economy.

Government officials blamed the volatility in foreign exchange markets for scrapping price controls on petrol which immediately jumped in price by around 40%.

Pressured by low oil prices, rising inflation and the depressed value of the Russian rouble, the Kazakh Central Bank released the tenge from its US dollar peg last month. It fell 23% in one day and is now trading at an all-time low of around 262/$1 which made petrol excessively cheap.

Deputy PM Bakhytzhan Sagintayev was handed the task of explaining the new policy to journalists.

“Having studied all possible options and discussed the issue with market players, we decided there should be a flexible pricing model given the ongoing volatility at the FX market,” he said. “The Government has decided to stop regulating prices for AI-92 and AI-93 petrol.”

In Almaty, Kazakhstan largest city, the effect was immediate. Queues snaked out of petrol stations as drivers rushed to fill their tanks.

Guldariya Iskakova, an accountant, summed up the feeling of people in Almaty about the petrol price rises. “It is awful. We are now seriously thinking to use public bus,” she said. “Our expenses have increased several times. The prices for petrol increased by 20 tenge in just one day.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Georgian TV channel cuts talk shows

AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The owners of the Imedi TV channel in Georgia cancelled two popular talk shows, triggering accusations that they had bowed to pressure from the ruling Georgian Dream coalition. Opponents of Georgian Dream say that it is intimidating criticalmedia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Construction starts at new Uzbek tyre plant

AUG. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek officials held a ceremony to mark the beginning of construction of a new tyre plant in the Angren special industrial zone, 90km outside of Tashkent. The total cost of the plant will be $230m. Uzkhimprom, the state-owned chemical industry holding, Uzavtoprom, the Uzbek car industry holding, and the two metallurgic complexes at Navoi and Almalyk will build the plant, the Trend News Agency reports.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Gazprom to invest in Kyrgyzstan

AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, will invest $700m in Kyrgyzstan’s gas infrastructure network, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev told media. Gazprom owns Kyrgyzstan’s gas network and has been promising investment, although it has yet to deliver on these promises.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Afghanistan warns Azerbaijan on IS

AUG. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with the state-run Turkish news agency Andalou, Afghan vice-president General Abdul Rashid Dostum said he believed the Islamic extremist group IS would target Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus. IS has been increasing its recruitment drive across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Food prices rise in Armenia

AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A significant increase in the cost of potatoes is upsetting locals in Yerevan, the Armenianow website reported. It said the price of potatoes had doubled over the past month. The government, though, has said the increase in prices is purely seasonal and will drop back down.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Georgian PM sacks foreign minister

SEPT. 1 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili sacked his foreign minister in a cabinet reshuffle that once again promoted people close to his own political mentor, Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Giorgi Kvirikashvili was shifted to the foreign ministry from the economy ministry and Tbilisi’s deputy mayor Dimitri Kumsishvili took over the economy ministry brief. Both men had previously worked at Cartu Bank, Mr Ivanishavili’s private bank. Mr Garibashvili, the PM, also worked at Cartu Bank.

Opponents of PM Garibashvili said that he was just doing his master’s bidding by replacing Tamar Beruchashvili, who had disagreed with him publicly on some policies, as the foreign minister but he said the changes were linked to a shift in policy direction.

“The government focuses on economic development and employment. This should also determine our foreign policy,” he said .

Korneli Kakachia, a professor of political science at Tbilisi State University and director of the Georgian Institute of Politics, told The Bulletin that Mr Ivanishvili single-handedly decides what happens in government.

“Mr Ivanishvili only trusts insiders with whom he has worked. That is why Cartubank employees have a privileged position,” he said.

This is a widely held view. Earlier this year, the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International said they were concerned that Mr Ivanishvili wanted to promote people who worked at Cartu Bank to prominent government positions.

“A pattern can be detected of individuals who were formerly employed by companies associated with Bidzina Ivanishvili being appointed to senior positions in the public service,” it said in April.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)