JAN. 17 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned Kazakhstan Engineering signed a deal with Russian Helicopters, also state-owned, to assemble helicopters at its plant in Astana. Specifically, Kazakhstan Engineering will assemble the Mil Mi-8AMT/Mi-171 helicopter which has a number of uses from ferrying cargo, to operations with the security services.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 14 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nikol Pashinyan was reinstated as Armenia’s PM, finalising a revolution he led in April/May 2018. His My Step coalition won 88 out of 132 seats at an election in December, meaning that it automatically nominated the PM. Mr Pashinyan had been the leader of a revolution that overthrew a government lead by the Republican Party’s Serzh Sargsyan. Mr Sargsyan had been president for a decade and had then tried to switch to be PM, a role he had empowered through a new constitution. This switch triggered the revolution.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 17 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Bishkek detained around a dozen people after an anti-Chinese rally in the centre of the city that attracted hundreds of demonstrators. The demonstration was the largest so far in a series of protests against growing Chinese influence over Kyrgyzstan. Demonstrators want Kyrgyz-Chinese marriages to be outlawed and work visas for Chinese to be restricted.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 9 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said that 47 Kazakh citizens had been rescued from Syria where he said they had been tricked into travelling and held as prisoners. Hundreds of Kazakh men have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the IS extremist group over the past few years. They often persuaded their wives and children to join them. Of the 47 people that Mr Nazarbayev said had been rescued, 30 were children.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 15 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov inspected the first batch of military equipment donated by Russia to the Kyrgyz border guard service. It had been delivered a month earlier and consisted of 125 off-road vehicles, 108 trucks, four ambulances and a handful of other vehicles. The kit is to be deployed on the Eurasian Economic Union’s borders with China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 12 (The Conway Bulletin) — Thirteen people have died from swine flu in Georgia this winter, Georgia’s health minister David Sergeenko told media. Mr Sergeenko denied that the flu was developing into an epidemic but also said that the government would cover the cost of the vaccine. Armenia has also reported at least one death from swine flu, a regular flu, this season.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 16 (The Conway Bulletin) — An explosion in a house in Tbilisi killed four people and injured eight others. The authorities blamed the explosion on a gas leak. Campaigners have complained that the government is more interested in constructing prestige projects for businesses rather than improving living conditions for ordinary people.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 14 (The Conway Bulletin) — A military cargo plane, initially said to have originated from Bishkek, crashed on landing in Iran killing at least 15 people. Both the Iran and Kyrgyzstan denied that the plane belonged to their militaries and some reports said that the plane was an internal Iran flight. The crash did raise questions by some analysts as to just how developed Iran-Kyrgyzstan relations have become over the past few years.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 14 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan increased its exports of cement to 1.44 tonnes, worth an estimated $65.4m, in 2018, media reported, up by around a third from 2017. The main markets for the exports are Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. Tajik cement is replacing Pakistani cement as the mainstay for the region.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
JAN. 11 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian energy company Tatneft said it had registered a subsidiary in Uzbekistan, although it did not elaborate on its business aims. Tatneft is one of the biggest energy companies in Russia and also operates 691 petrol stations across Russia, Belarus and Ukraine
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019