Category Archives: Uncategorised

Georgia’s parliament approves security chief

JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBILISI — Georgia’s parliament approved the appointment of Vakhtang Gomelauri, the current minister of interior, as head of the new State Security Service.

Its a controversial move as the State Security Service, which will take over most of Georgia’s intelligence gathering duties, was created to break up the power of the interior ministry.

Before becoming the interior minister, Mr Gomelauri was the head of the bodyguard team protecting Georgia’s most powerful man Bidzina Ivanishvili who set up the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.

And Georgia’s opposition have already accused the government of turning the position into a political football with Mr Gomelauria’s appointment.

“Gomelauri’s appointment shows that setting up the State Security Service to depoliticise security related matters is an absolute farce,” said Chiora Taktakishvili, an MP for the United National Movement during the vote in parliament.

As head of the new State Security Service, Mr Gomelauri will be in charge of defending Georgia’s borders, fighting terrorism, and preventing corruption.

Lincoln Mitchell, a political scientist, told the Bulletin it was, always unlikely someone without a close relationship with Mr Ivanishvili would have been appointed to the position. He also said, though, that he thought the creation of the agency was a step in the right direction.

“The Georgian Dream government has made Georgia more free than the previous regime, but has not moved as quickly as it should have to dismantle the tools that their predecessors used to limit freedoms,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

McDonald’s chooses Kazakh capital

JULY 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US fast food giant McDonalds will open its first store in Kazakhstan this year in Astana, media reported quoting city officials. Last year McDonalds said it had agreed a franchise deal with businessman Kairat Bornabayev.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Georgian parliament passes banking law

JULY 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament passed a final reading of a bill that strips supervision of the country’s commercial banking sector from the Central Bank. The World Bank had urged the government to drop the bill. President Giorgi Margvelashvili now has to sign the bill into law although he has said he may veto it.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Youth Olympics begin in Georgia

JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia began gearing up to host the European Youth Olympic Festival in Tbilisi between July 26 and Aug. 1, one of the biggest sporting events it has hosted. Around 3,500 young athletes will compete for medals in a number of sports.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Georgian electricity price rises approved

TBILISI, JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian state regulators approved a price increase for electricity, a rise that will irritate consumers and also the power companies who said the rise was not enough to cover the cost of production.

Electricity prices have become a major political issue across Central Asia and the South Caucasus because falling local currencies have forced up the cost of imports needed to fuel power stations.

In Armenia, thousands of people have protested for weeks about a sharp increase in electricity prices.

Perhaps mindful of the political fallout, Georgia’s regulators tried to limit price increases. The price rises appear to vary enormously between 2% and 30% depending on consumers’ overall annual use.

Zurab Gelenidze, CFO of Georgian Industrial Group, said the price rises were not enough. “The sustainability of the entire system will become questionable,” he told media.

Also reacting to the price rises, PM Irakli Garibashvili said the government would give out subsidies to some lower income families.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Uzbekistan claims GDP growth

JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan’s PM, said GDP grew by 8.1% in the first half of 2015, compared to 2014. Given the secretive nature of the country, Uzbekistan’s official statistics have to be treated with skepticism.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Kazakh airline makes profit

JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Air Astana, the Kazakh airline part-owned by Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna and BAE Systems, said that profit was $8.3m in the first half of the year compared to a $36.5m loss in the same period in 2014. The main driver of the increased profit was the cheaper price of jet fuel.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Tajik court jails opposition member

JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tajikistan jailed Jaloliddin Mahmudov, a senior official in the opposition Islamic Renaissance party, for illegally handling weapons, media reported. Opposition groups in Tajikistan have said that they are being unfairly targeted by the authorities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Kyrgyzstan downgrades relations with the US

JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK – Kyrgyzstan downgraded bilateral relations with the US because of an award the State Department gave to an imprisoned ethnic Uzbek human rights defender last week, media reported.

Relations between the US and Kyrgyzstan have been worsening since the US military withdrew from an air base outside Bishkek last year. Since then, Kyrgyzstan has drifted towards Russia, joining its Eurasian Economic Union and adopting laws on foreign-funded NGOs and homosexuals which the US has said infringes civil liberties.

The award was given by the US State Department to Azimzhan Askarov. He was imprisoned in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after ethnic fighting killed nearly 400 people in the city of Osh. His supporters said that the charges, inciting violence, had been fabricated.

After Askarov’s son travelled to Washington to pick up the award, Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev signed a decree denouncing relations, which will come into effect on Aug. 20. The move will mean tax breaks awarded to US companies will be cancelled.

On the streets of Bishkek, reaction was mixed. Some people welcomed the tough stance by Mr Sariyev, others were cautious.

“In a couple of years, we will become a colony of Russia,” said a 30-year-old resident of Bishkek. “It is indeed bad that we are losing such assistance because Kyrgyzstan is a poor country.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)

Uzbekistan plans to build new car plant

JULY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – General Motor’s subsidiary, GM Uzbekistan, and Uzavtosanoat said they will build a second car plant in Uzbekistan, according to Ruslan Batyrov, head of media at Uzavtosanoat. The two companies already own a car plant near Andijan, eastern Uzbekistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)