SEPT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s top state-sponsored Muslim cleric, chief mufti Saidmukarram Abdulkodirzoda, has issued a fatwa against people criticising the government, AFP news agency reported. He said criticising the government should be considered a sin. Opponents said that this underlined government control over society.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Torture in Uzbek prisons is still endemic, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report. Out of 44 former and current prisoners interviewed for the report, HRW said that 29 were tortured. Uzbekistan has said it is eliminating torture from its prisons and that officers who beat inmates are prosecuted.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a show of mutual support, Russian president Vladimir Putin travelled to Atyrau in west Kazakhstan after a meeting of Caspian Sea littoral states in Russia to meet with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Russia is looking for allies over its stand-off with the West over intervention in Ukraine.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF cut its growth estimate for Armenia to 2.6% this year from 3.6% earlier and to 3.3% in 2015, down from an earlier estimate of 4.3%.The downgrades are in line with other agencies who adjusted Armenia’s growth figures downwards because of the impact of sanctions on Russia’s economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Jailed Azerbaijani human rights activist and government critic Anar Mammadli has won the prestigious Vaclav Havel Prize from the Council of Europe. Mammadli is the director of the Baku-based Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center. He was imprisoned last year for tax evasion.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Japan has signed a deal to help build local infrastructure projects in Azerbaijan such as improving basic drinking water access in villages, media reported. This may show that Japan is trying to increase its participation in the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Spanish natural gas provider Enagas bought a 16% stake in the TAP pipeline that will pump gas from the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to central Europe.
The purchase of the shares, a 10% stake from France’s Total and a 6% stake from Germany’s E.ON underline how important European countries consider the project to be.
Belgium’s Fluxys also increased its stake to 19%. The other shareholders in TAP are BP, Norway’s Statoil and Azerbaijani energy company SOCAR all with 20% of the project. Swiss energy company Axpo also owns 5% of TAP.
Reuters quoted Kjetil Tungland, TAP’s managing director.
“The TAP joint venture has always been open to new strategic partners,” he said.
“Enagas … will help to enhance TAP’s strategic position as a truly European project that will transport a new source of gas to the continent’s energy markets.”
The pipeline is scheduled for completion in 2018. European countries consider it an essential piece of infrastructure development to diversify their gas deliveries away from Russia, through which most of its gas was being delivered.
The plan is for TAP to run 870km from the Shah Deniz II field in the Caspian Sea to the Turkey-Greece border. There it will connected to another pipeline called TANAP which will pump the gas through the Balkans and across to Italy. From Italy the gas can be re-distributed across Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s prosecutor-general ordered the exhumation of the body of former PM Zurab Zhvania and ally of former president Mikheil Saakashvili who died in 2005 allegedly of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater. Despite the official verdict of accidental death, suspicions around Zhvania’s death have persisted.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will issue a US dollar denominated bond later this year, its first since 2000, Reuters reported. Government officials have launched a roadshow to drum up support for the debt issue. These are difficult times, though, because of the knock-on effect of sanctions on Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)
SEPT. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian opposition groups have launched another round of anti- government protests, media reported. Around 2,000 people gathered for the first planned protest in a town outside Yerevan. Six more rallies are planned around the country with a final rally in central Yerevan on Oct. 10.
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(News report from Issue No. 202, published on Oct. 1 2014)