Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakhstan’s Bek Air buys 7 Russian planes

JULY 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, is this the price of membership of the Russia-led Customs Union? Kazakhstan’s Bek Air has agreed to buy seven Sukhoi Superjet 100-95s for an undisclosed amount.

The Sukhoi Superjet 100-95s were unveiled to much fanfare in 2008 but sales have been sluggish and the reviews less than flattering.

In 2012, Armenian airline Armavia returned its Sukhoi Superjet after a year of flying it between Yerevan and Kiev because it was deemed to be sub-standard.

A few months earlier, in May 2012, a Superjet 100 had crashed into mountains in Indonesia during a demonstration flight killing all 45 people on board. Pilot error was declared the cause of the accident.

The Sukhoi Superjet-100 is the first passenger plane to be manufactured by Russia since the end of the Soviet Union. It is designed for medium and short-haul flights and has a capacity of between 86 and 108 passengers, depending on how the seating is arranged, and retails for around $35m per plane.

Bek Air is an almost perfect client for Sukhoi, which is a majority Russian state-owned company. Bek Air flies internal routes across Kazakhstan between Almaty, Astana, Uralsk and Atyrau.

Importantly Bek Air is also Kazakh. Kazakhstan is a junior member of the Customs Union, soon to morph into the Eurasian Economic Union, and will be under pressure to buy kit from Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Georgia supports NATO

JULY 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Confirming its support for NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, Georgia said it would commit 750 soldiers to the non-combat mission phase, media reported. Georgia has been using its military as an extension of its diplomatic arm, supporting missions to curry favour with NATO which it hopes to join.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Islamic radicals jailed in Kazakhstan

JULY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the southern Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan sentenced four people to between six and 12 years in prison for trying to recruit young men to fight for Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq. Central Asian states are increasingly nervous about extremist recruitment drives.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan de-escalate tension

JULY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan agreed to jointly investigate a shoot-out along its shared borders earlier this month that killed one person, media reported. The announcement was an important step in deescalating tension along the border. There have been several clashes on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Georgia charges Saakashvili

JULY 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prosecutors in Georgia charged former president Mikheil Saakashvili with illegally breaking up an anti-government demonstration in 2007, taking over a television station and expropriating a businessman’s assets.

Mr Saakashvili, who has previously declined to appear in front of a court to face the charges, described them as politically motivated.

Georgian politics is sharply polarised and since the Georgian Dream coalition, led by Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili, came to power in the parliamentary elections in 2012 and the presidential vote in 2013 it has chased and charged Mr Saakashvili’s former associates with various crimes.

Both the EU and the US have criticised the Georgian Dream for persecuting former high-ranking officials but, despite Georgia’s continued pro-Western agenda, they have been unable to stop the charges.

Mr Saakashvili left Georgia last year, after the presidential election, to avoid facing charges which he said would be fabricated and levied against him.

The United States considered Mr Saakashvili a key ally and charges levied against him will irritate them.

“Commitment to the rule of law means both that everyone must comply with the law in a democratic society and that the legal system should not be used as a tool of political retribution,” the US State Department said in a statement.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Turkish FM visits Uzbekistan

JULY 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, visited Tashkent, a hugely symbolic gesture between the two countries. Relations between Uzbekistan and Turkey have been stained over the past few years and Mr Davutoglu was the first Turkish foreign minister to visit Tashkent for 10 years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Tajikistan to modernise power plant

JULY 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has agreed to loan Tajikistan $50m to modernise a vital power station, media reported. The Qairokkum plant, built in 1958, is the only power generating plant in the north of the country and supplies electricity to 500,000 homes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

French president to visit Kazakhstan

JULY 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – French president Francois Hollande will visit Kazakhstan in the second half of 2014, the Kazakh government said. France has major investments in Kazakhstan and cooperation is growing between the two countries. There is also talk of setting up direct flights to Astana from Paris.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Kazakhstan relaxes visa regime

JULY 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – As announced last month, Kazakhstan dropped visa requirements from 10 countries for people staying less than 15 days. The move is a trial but could be expanded if successful. The countries are the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the UAE, Malaysia, the Netherlands, S.Korea, and Japan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Azerbaijan’s oil output continues to fall

JULY 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s oil output has continued to fall in 2014 despite attempts by BP, the country’s biggest foreign investor, to stem the decline. Reuters quoted a source in the Azerbaijani statistics department as saying that output was down 2.8% in the first six months of the year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)