JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In 2013, Turkmenistan produced 62.3b cubic metres of gas, only a slight increase on the previous year, BP said in its annual review of the world’s energy setup. It also said that after Russia, Iran and Qatar, Turkmenistan holds the largest gas reserves in the world.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia and Russia met for their 28th round of talks since the two neighbours fought a war in 2008. The two-day talks in Geneva are an important step towards normalising relations. Georgia- Russia ties have improved since 2012 when the party of Georgia’s former leader Mikheil Saakashvil started to lose power.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The thorny issue of pension reform returned to centre stage in Armenia after the new government submitted a proposal that watered down unpopular reforms.
Earlier this year Armenia’s government resigned over the unpopularity of its changes to the pension system which came into effect on Jan. 1. The new law stated that people born after 1973 pay 5% of their salaries into a government scheme, a sum matched by the government.
Thousands of people demonstrated against this plan and the Constitutional Court eventually deemed it illegal and demanded that the new law was amended by Sept. 30.
Armenia was effectively plunged into a political crisis — and the issue of how to reform the out-of-date pension system was still unresolved.
Now the new government of Hovik Abrahamyan is trying to tackle the problem.
It has proposed that the scheme would only be obligatory for public servants who will also have their salaries raised from July 1. It’s a brave proposal and one that may gain traction. Like other states across the former Soviet Union, Armenia needs to reform its overly-generous state pension scheme and also avoid major public discontent.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Islamic extremists fighting for the al Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have captured 16 Georgians working for an Iraqi telecoms company in Mosul, media quoted the UN as saying. Militants captured Mosul, Iraq’s second city, last week before taking cities nearer Baghdad.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pakistan’s PM Nawaz Sharif flew to Tajikistan for a two day trip that is seen as vital in pushing through joint energy projects. One proposal is the CASA-1000 project which would allow Pakistan to import electricity from Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
BISHKEK/Kyrgyzstan, JUNE 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dressed in a colourful striped shirt Narynbek Moldobayev is on first name terms with all the staff at this Italian restaurant in central Bishkek.
Moldobayev is the archetypal Kyrgyz MP and rather charming with it. Having moved seamlessly between three political parties in the last five years, his politics can be described as fluid — a common characteristic in Kyrgyzstan.
And it is this fluidity amongst the Kyrgyzstan’s political class, that’s important to examine as it is undermining, many say, Central Asia’s first parliamentary democracy.
An MP who supported former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted in a revolution in 2010, Moldobayev is now part of an opposition group that split from the nationalist Ata-Jurt party.
“I was never a nationalist,” he said as he tucked into a bowl of salad.
Moldobayev is 60-years-old and sentimental about the Soviet Union. He praises Russia unreservedly but is suspicious of China and its “desire to influence” the Central Asian energy sphere.
Moldobayev, primarily a businessman who made his money in the construction and oil industries, seems unbothered by the values of the party whose list he has paid his way to be on through donations. “Kyrgyz politics is built on personal gripes,” he said wearily, explaining why some parties in the parliament have effectively disintegrated.
Many say Kyrgyzstan’s political system might be more representative if it ditched party lists in favour of geographic constituencies. In the parliamentary vote in 2010 five parties took less than 40% of the vote creating a fractious, and many argue weaker, parliament. Moldobayev disagrees with this viewpoint, citing potential for “dangerous localism”.
There may be another reason, though. Since few people actually know who Moldobayev is and he might not win a seat.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a year-long pilot project starting on July 15, Kazakhstan will drop visa requirements for citizens staying for up to 15 days from 10 countries, media reported. These countries are the United States, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and Japan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The appointment of Tokon Mamytov, a former spy, as head of Kyrgyz state gold mining champion Kygyzaltyn could be good news for investors.
Kyrgyzaltyn acts as the government’s representative in partnerships with Canadian Centerra Gold, operator of the country’s major gold mine, Kumtor, and a number of other Joint Stock mining projects including Altynken (Chui province) and Makmal (Jalal-Abad province).
Starting out in the Soviet-era KGB, Mr Mamytov has spent his adult life in security and defence postings, a background some argue doesn’t qualify him to run a mining company.
But others see Mr Mamytov’s appointment as signal that change is coming.
Kubat Rahimov, a local economist, said Mr Mamytov’s background in the security services, was a good thing as Kyrgyzaltyn’s previous leaders were young western-educated types that “played by Asian rules”. This was a thinly veiled reference to corruption.
Mr Mamytov will not have full control over the sector — licenses are issued via the State Agency of Geology and Mineral Resources — but the position makes him the government’s man on the ground across projects accounting for 97% of the country’s gold production.
Mr Mamytov will need to draw on experience from his last post — managing conflict on the Kyrgyz-Tajik frontier as a deputy PM in charge of security, defence and border issues — in his new post. Along with corruption, community conflict is the biggest problem facing the Kyrgyz mining sector today.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will waive corporation and land tax for 10 years for foreign investors outside its energy industry, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said.The initiative is part of a drive to try and attract investors back to Kazakhstan. Rampant corruption and a flatlining economy have deterred some investors.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Iran will sign a deal improving post and information technology connections, media reported, an important step for improving relations between the two neighbours. Azerbaijan-Iran relations have improved with the election last year of Hassan Rouhani as Iranian president.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)