MAY 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A tiger at Tbilisi Zoo attacked its keeper ripping her arms and legs, media reported. Reports said the woman keeper, who has worked at the zoo for 25 years, was standing in an area outside the main cage when she was attacked. Doctors said they had amputated her leg and her situation was serious.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) officially closed its office in Baku, 6 months after Azerbaijani police raided it. Relations between Azerbaijan and the West have worsened over the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan said the IMF and EBRD’s forecast of negative economic growth this year were wrong and that he still expected the economy to grow slightly.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Asim Thabit Abdullah al- Khalaqi, a former inmate of the US’ Guantanamo Bay prison, died in Kazakhstan of kidney failure, media reported. The US released Mr Khalaqi, a Yemeni national who spent 11 years in Guantanamo Bay, six months ago with a handful of other inmates. They were resettled in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Traffic on Kyrgyzstan’s roads is growing by about 5% a year, Oleg Pankratov, Kyrgyzstan’s minister of economy, said. Mr Pankratov also said he wanted to introduce some way of charging foreign cars a fee for using Kyrgyzstan’s roads.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The New York-based Human Rights Watch said EU leaders should do more to pressure Azerbaijan into releasing journalists, human rights defenders and critics of the government from prison. Azerbaijan has detained and imprisoned dozens of opposition activists over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – With oil prices around $60-$65 per barrel, Kazakhstan’s economy will grow by 3% this year, Kairat Kelimbetov, the Kazakh Central Bank chief, told Reuters. His estimate was roughly double the estimate of the IMF.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to Seoul, Uzbek president Islam Karimov met his South Korean counterpart Park Geun-hye to sign a series of deals and to confirm renewed Uzbekistan-Korean partnership. South Korea has been building links with Uzbekistan, rich in natural resources.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TeliaSonera, Sweden’s biggest mobile phone operator, said it has been open and transparent about the way it bought a stake in Azerbaijan’s Azercell in 2008. It made the statement after TV stations reported that it bought the stake from the Azerbaijani government for $180m, far less than the estimated market value.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After a fire ripped through a Baku apartment block and killed at least 16 people earlier this month, the authorities ordered decorative panels which had been used to smarten the city ahead of the European Games next month to be torn down.
Media reported that Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev ordered the polyurethane panels to be removed .
Azerbaijan is keen to show off Baku and the country during the European Games. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that some Azerbaijan residents started to rip off the foam panelling before the authorities had agreed for it to be taken down.
“It’s stupid to put up with this in silence. We have to act,” RFE/RL quoted one Baku resident as saying on Facebook. “We have to dismantle this idiotic facing. Life is worth fighting for.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)