MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR continued to expand its network of petrol stations in Georgia and Romania, media reported. SOCAR is Azerbaijan’s biggest brand and, with its distinctive logo carrying the Azerbaijani flag and an old oil well, is seen as a way of promoting the country abroad.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia may be able to complete all the steps needed to join the Customs Union by the end of May, Armenian PM Tigran Sargsyan said. His announcement is the clearest indication so far of when Armenia hopes to join the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Pavlodar, north Kazakhstan, jailed four Kazakhs who had trained with Islamic radicals in Syria, media reported. The Kazakhs were arrested in Turkey after crossing from Syria. Governments in Central Asia and the South Caucasus are increasingly concerned about people becoming radicalised in Syria.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Prince Harry, third in line to the English throne, spent a long weekend in mid-March skiing at the Kazakh ski resort of Shymbulak, the Sun newspaper reported.
Grainy photos later appeared of Prince Harry posing for photos at the bottom of the slope. He apparently flew to the top of the piste in a hired helicopter.
By design or by accident, Prince Harry’s trip to Shymbulak is the best PR that the resort could have hoped for. Only last month, Kazakhstan unveiled its bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2022. Shymbulak was the centrepiece of this bid.
Shymbulak is still a curious choice for Prince Harry and his girlfriend Cressida Bonas to choose for a weekend break. It’s a long way from Europe, the jet-leg is heavy and, despite Kazakh PR proclaiming the opposite, the runs are limited compared to the Alps.
Even Kazakhstan’s wealthy prefer skiing in St Moritz and Chamonix.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s economy grew only a sluggish 1.6% in the year to end-February, media reported quoting the state’s statistics agency. Most international organisations have predicted GDP growth of around 5% for Azerbaijan this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev met US president Barack Obama on the sidelines of a nuclear security conference in the Hague, the Netherlands. Other than an anodyne joint declaration on nuclear security, neither side gave details on what was discussed. Kazakhstan has supported Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s GDP rose 7.1% in Q4 2013 compared to the same period in 2012, the statistics office said. The data is more evidence that Georgia’s economy is bouncing back after a sluggish 2011 and 2012. The Central Bank increased interest rates last month for the first time since 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Turkmenistan have imprisoned a seventh man for refusing to sign up for conscription, the Forum 18 website reported.
Forum 18 reported that Pavel Paymov, a 23-year-old Jehovah’s Witness member, was sent to one year in prison in January for dodging conscription.
According to the article, Turkmenistan does not offer an alternative to military service. This, apparently, breaks international human rights laws.
Turkmenistan’s constitution calls on men to serve for two years in the military between the ages of 18 and 27.
Earlier this month, Turkmenistan mobilised its reserve forces after an attack on its border with Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Disagreements over the pagan Nowruz celebration, marking the beginning of spring have highlighted fault lines in Kyrgyz society.
While the state-affiliated Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan (SAMK) views celebrating Nowruz as an acceptable part of pre-Islamic Kyrgyz tradition, more hard-line clerics, perhaps with a more Arab influence, called on believers to ignore the holiday completely in the run up to March 21.
The debate brings into focus the sharp rise of nontraditional Islam, imported from the Arab world, in Central Asia.
Nowruz — a key event in the calendar of all five Central Asian states and also Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey — is not celebrated in other parts of the Muslim world.
In February, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev expressed alarm at signs of “Arab culture, including the appearance of women wearing hijab, something alien to the gentler Kyrgyz traditional Islam.
As well as a gulf between the views of secularists like Mr Atambayev and practicing Muslims, Kyrgyzstan is also witnessing what a local religion expert called a “battle for control of mosques between different Jamaats.
As if to illustrate the point, last month the deputy Imam of a mosque in Kara-Suu, a southern city, was arrested for organising radical activity.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Underling just how dependent Azerbaijan is on oil exports, the Central Bank published data that showed that 95% of its exports in 2013 were energy related. It exported $26.9b worth of oil and $1.6b worth of processed oil products, mainly to neighbouring Georgia.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)