Category Archives: Uncategorised

Tajikistan signs CASA-1000 deal

APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a ceremony in Istanbul, Tajik, Pakistani and Afghan officials signed a deal that will mean electricity generated in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains will power households in Islamabad.

The CASA-1000 project should generate income for Dushanbe from its hydro-stations and for Kabul as a transit country while plugging a shortfall in electricity in Pakistan.

As well as an economic success, the $1.2b project is seen as a diplomatic highlight by the United States which is keen to involve Central Asian countries in trade deals with Pakistan and Afghanistan. It sees this as a way to foster stability once it withdraws its forces.

Richard Hoagland, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, said: “We’ve already seen the efficacy of such an approach in the successes of the CASA-1000 energy project, which brought together a grouping of countries that had never before worked together on a development project.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Uzbekistan boosts border guards

APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Reacting to the traditional start of the fighting season in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan ordered its Border Guards service to beef up its numbers along its southern border, Russian news agencies reported. Central Asian states are worried about the creep north of the Taliban.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Nazarbayev re-casts Kazakh history in his own image

ASTANA/Kazakhstan, APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Keen to build his everlasting legacy, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev has create a museum in Astana to furnish his image as the Leader of the Nation.

A few days before the 74-year-old Nazarbayev won his fifth presidential election on April 26, The Conway Bulletin had a look around the National Museum, a futuristic building of marble and glass set at the heart of the new city.

It is the largest museum in Central Asia and was opened on July 6 last year, the 17th anniversary of Astana’s designation as Kazakhstan’s capital, a crown it took from Almaty in the south.

As if to underline its superiority over the far more louche Almaty, the new National Museum in Astana has taken the best from the old National Museum. All the national treasures are here from a huge 1-tonne bürkit, the national eagle to the Altyn Adam, so-called golden man, symbol of the nomadic warring times of the Kazakh civilisation.

Two grandiose light shows are shown every hour, with videos featuring the President. His words are engraved at each corner. “One people, one civilization, one future,” read one.

A couple of hundred visitors on a Sunday afternoon felt barely visible in this vast museum. Directing staff pointed the way, ensuring that tourists and locals both experience Nazarbayev’s own reading of Kazakhstan’s history.

In the Astana Hall, countless photos of the president giving speeches and inaugurating buildings are accompanied by Nazarbayev’s own drawings that served as a guidelines for Astana’s landmark monuments, such as the Baiterek tower, first sketched on a tissue.

The question that everybody wants answering now is when is he going to stand aside and allow another president to run the country. Even when he does though, there is little doubt that Nazarbayev, as the Leader of the Nation, will be standing and watching not too far behind the scenes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Foreign currency sales fall in Kazakhstan

APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh media reported a 19% drop in sales of US dollars, euros and roubles at foreign exchange points in March compared to February, suggesting a slowdown of the near panicked drive by ordinary Kazakhs to sell out of tenge when they thought a devaluation was imminent.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015

Armenia wants sanction-free Iran

APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps looking to boost relations with its neighbour, Armenia has been quick to welcome a potential reduction in sanctions over Iran, media reported quoting Armenian foreign minister Eduard Nalbandyan. Armenia and Iran have steadily improved trade and political links.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Azerbaijan’s IBA pulls in $200m loan

APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Azerbaijani state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan raised a $200m loan from 18 financial institutions. This is important because it means Western banks are willing to lend to Azerbaijani state-owned institutions despite the economic downturn.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Costs of Games rises in Azerbaijan

APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan is covertly cutting salaries for state employees to try and pay for the rising cost of the European Games which are scheduled to be held next month, the Eurasinet website reported.

It quoted unnamed employees of Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee saying that they had had their bonuses scrapped because of the Games.

Eurasianet said the State Customs Committee declined to comment and that the ministry of taxes denied the allegations.

The 16-day European Games, which starts on June 12, is a major set-piece event for Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. He wants to use sport to promote the country and to distract from criticism of his human rights record.

The problem is that, although Azerbaijan has enough oil- generated wealth to survive a regional downturn in economics, cash is getting tighter and paying for the multi-billion- dollar European Games is getting harder.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Georgia’s lari falls to 16-year low vs dollar

APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s lari currency dropped to a 16-year low against the US dollar despite efforts by the Central Bank to prevent the fall.

The Central Bank said it had sold off another $40m of its reserves to prop up the lari. This was the fifth intervention of $40m this year by the Central Bank despite an earlier pledge by its head, Georgy Kadagidze, not to sell its reserves to defend its value.

Even so, the lari fell to 2.3 against the US dollar its lowest level since 1999. Since November, the lari has lost around a third of its value.

A fall in the price of oil and a drop in the value of the Russian rouble have hit the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus hard.

Georgia has reported a 27% drop in exports in the first quarter of 2015 compared to a year earlier and has cut its projected GDP growth to 2% from an earlier estimate of 5%. Remittances from Russia have fallen by around 20%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Muslims complain in Tajikistan

APRIL 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Devout Muslims in Tajikistan say officials are waging a campaign designed to intimidate and humiliate them by shaving off their beards and limiting access to the annual Haj to Mecca, the AFP news agency reported. Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon has steadily cracked down on Islam.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)

Azerbaijan restricts people’s right to travel

APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Milli Majlis, the Azerbaijani Parliament approved an amendment to the Criminal Code which will punish citizens for not notifying the government within a month when they receive citizenship for another country.

Opposition members criticised the new law for imposing repressive legislation designed to increase the government’s control of its people.

Under the new law, citizens will be fined between 3,000 and 5,000 manat ($2,800-$4,750) or receive 360 to 480 hours of public service for not notifying the Azerbaijani authorities that they have taken a second nationality.

Azerbaijan already outlaws dual nationality but the existing laws did not contain a penalty.

Lawyer Muzaffar Baxishov of the Legal State Research Foundation, an Azerbaijani NGO told the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the government wants to create obstacles for its critics.

“People will have to inform the government about new citizenship, otherwise they will be involved in a criminal case,” he said.

The US and the EU have both heavily criticised Azerbaijan for crushing dissent over the past few years. Many of Azerbaijan’s opposition groups gather emotional and financial support from outside the country. The government has already moved to restrict its citizens’ travel.

Under regulation introduced in January, Azerbaijanis now have to inform their embassies that they are residing in a country, even if temporarily. Previously, Azerbaijani citizens only had to tell embassies if they intended to stay in a country permanently.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)