MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili described Crimea’s referendum on independence from Ukraine as illegal, the harshest criticism of the vote yet from a former Soviet state. Two regions of Georgia — South Ossetia and Abkhazia — have held similar Russia-backed independence referendums.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The media lobby group Reporters Without Borders (RWB) criticised Azerbaijan for sending to prison journalist Tofig Yagublu for inciting anti-government rioting in the northern city of Ismaylli in January 2013. RWB said the authorities in Azerbaijan are increasingly cracking down on opposition journalists.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Already the biggest customer of Turkmen gas, China has said it wants to boost its export of various products into Turkmenistan. Media reported a visit by a Chinese delegation to Turkmenistan, underscoring the close ties between the two countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of people living in a town in the western Kazakh province of Mangistau protested against soaring joblessness after reading an interview by their mayor in which he boasted of unemployment of only 0.4%, media reported. Inhabitants said unemployment was nearer 40%.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kyrgyzstan dropped Uzbek as a language that secondary school students can sit their graduation exams in, media reported. Kyrgyzstan’s education ministry said the number of students choosing to sit their exams in Uzbek was just too low. Human rights campaigners have said that Uzbeks have been increasingly marginalised in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting nepotism in Tajik officialdom, Ashraf Gulov, the son-in-law of President Emonali Rakhmon, has been made head of the state Tax Committee’s internal audit department, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state news service Kazinform said it would publish a Chinese-language website, underlining how important China has become to Kazakhstan. Over the past half a decade or so, China has increasingly become Kazakhstan’s main economic partner. It owns a third of Kazakhstan’s oil and gas reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The impact of Kazakhstan’s 20% currency devaluation last month is beginning to filter through to business.
Kazakh senator Mikhail Bortnik said that unless JSC International Airport Aktau could restructure its dollar-denominated debt, it would go bankrupt.
JSC International Airport Aktau, which under a deal with Mangistau regional government is owned by Turkish company ATM until 2025, has re-built Aktau airport’s passenger terminal and runway over the last few years.
It is now Kazakhstan’s third busiest airport, behind Almaty and Astana, and hosts flights from Baku, Kiev, Moscow and central Europe.
But after February’s tenge devaluation the $47m debt that Mangistau regional government took on to re-build the airport from the state-run Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) has become 20% more expensive to service.
The problem for the DBK is that if it agrees to restructure the Aktau airport debt, it may have to restructure several other company debts too.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian energy company Lukoil invested $660m in gas projects in Uzbekistan last year, media reported quoting a company press release. This is a 38% increase in Lukoil’s investment in 2012 and underlines just how important Russian investment is for Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pollution and poor irrigation management have killed off much of the fish in Lake Sevan in Armenia, media quoted experts as saying. Lake Sevan is one of the world’s biggest fresh water lakes and one of Armenia’s main tourist attractions.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)