Category Archives: Uncategorised

Azerbaijani journalists join hunger strike

JAN. 15 (The Conway Bulletin) — Several Azerbaijani opposition activists and journalists, including award-winning investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, joined jailed blogger Mehmen Huseynov in a hunger strike. Huseynov, 26, was jailed for defamation in 2017. He had been nearing the end of his jail sentence when the authorities said that that they were charging him with attacking a prison officer. The charges could add seven years to his sentence. Huseynov and his supporters have said the charges have been fabricated to silence him. Azerbaijan is already considered to have a poor record for human and media rights. The added attention of the hunger strike will further dent its reputation.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

Consumer lending rises in Azerbaijan

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JAN. 17 (The Conway Bulletin) — Consumer lending in Azerbaijan increased by 6% in 2018 compared to the previous year, the Central Bank said, the first annual rise since 2015. The rise is an important sign that consumer confidence is returning. Azerbaijan was heavily hit by an economic downturn from 2014, triggered by a drop in oil prices. One of the drivers of Azerbaijan’s economic decline was a high proportion of poor loans, often unrecoverable, to consumers.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

Georgia and Azerbaijan to build new terminal at Batumi port

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AN. 14 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia and Azerbaijan will jointly fund the construction of a new terminal at the Georgian city of Batumi on the Black Sea, media reported. The terminal will specialise in the loading and unloading minerals and fertilisers and add to the ports of entry and exit for goods moving across the South Caucasus. Reports said that US companies Wondernet Express Investments and Trammo will also invest in the project.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

Armenia and Azerbaijan meet in Paris for peace talks

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JAN. 16 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers met in Paris for talks over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh that have been hailed by some of the most significant in recent years. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he “particularly welcomed the Ministers’ agreement on the need to take concrete measures to prepare the populations for peace.”
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

EBRD gives its largest loan to Uzbekistan

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TASHKENT/JAN. 14 (The Conway Bulletin) — – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) loaned $240m to Uzbekenergo to modernise its Talimarjan gas power plant in the south of the country.

The loan will be spent on installing 90MW combined cycle gas turbines. It is the largest single investment by the EBRD in Uzbekistan. The EBRD only re-entered Uzbekistan last year, after a break of 10 years, when it became clear that President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was intent on opening up the country after years of isolation under the reclusive Islam Karimov.

“The investment will address a major issue for the region, namely the provision of uninterrupted and sustainable power supply, which will support economic growth and improve the wellbeing of the population,” the EBRD said in a statement.

The other joint funders on the project are the Asian Development Bank and the Uzbek Fund for Reconstruction and Development. The EBRD has invested a total of 1.3b euros in 70 projects in Uzbekistan.

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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

Uzbekistan secures $4b investments from Germany

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JAN. 20 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev travelled to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the culmination of an Uzbek-German business forum. At the forum, German firms pledged to invest 4b euros into various projects in Uzbekistan. The projects range from finance to engineering. Germany has been one of the main drivers of European Union investment in Uzbekistan since Mr Mirziyoyev took over the presidency in 2016.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

Murders of Kazakh figure skater given prison sentences

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ALMATY/JAN. 17 (The Conway Bulletin) — — A court in Almaty, the financial centre of Kazakhstan, found two men guilty of murdering Olympic bronze medallist figure skater Denis Ten last year when he caught them trying to steal the wing mirrors off his car.

Arman Kudaibergenov and Nurali Kiyasov were both given 18-year sentences and another woman, Zhanar Tolybayeva, was given a four-year sentence for failing to report the crime. Friends and family of Ten, though, have said that Tolybayeva should also be charged with murder. Some reports have said that she was the leader of the group; others that she was on look-out duty.

Earlier in the court hearing, Kudaibergenov had apologised to the family of Ten and said that they had had no intention of killing him.

“First of all, I would like to ask Denis’ parents and all the people of Kazakhstan to forgive me. I sincerely regret what happened,” he said. “We did not have any intention of killing. I just wanted to find money and chose to steal.”

The murder of the popular Ten, 25, shocked people in Almaty. He disturbed Kudaibergenov and Kiyasov trying to wrench the wing mirrors off his car when he came back from lunch with friends in the city centre on July 19 last year. He chased them when they tried to run away but one of the men stabbed Ten twice in his thigh, piercing his femoral artery.

After the murder, there were calls for the Kazakh interior minister to resign and allegations that the police were protecting petty criminals and profiting from an epidemic of petty crime in Almaty.

Ten, an ethnic Korean with angelic looks, was a Kazakh sports superstar and a household name in a country where tough boxers, weightlifters and wrestlers dominate. Ten won his bronze medal in figure skating at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Kazakhstan’s only medal.

Last year, Ten, who had struggled with injuries, competed for Kazakhstan in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, coming in at 27th place.
Ten had told the media that he planned to retire from figure skating and take up professional photography.

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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019

China allows 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs to leave

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ALMATY/JAN. 10 (The Conway Bulletin) — China has allowed 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs living in its western Xinjiang province to ditch their Chinese citizenship and move to Kazakhstan, media reported.

Previously, China has often resisted ethnic Kazakh attempts to move to Kazakhstan. Analysts said that the permissions to relocate were linked to increased concern in Beijing over how China’s internment policies towards Muslims living in the west of the country were being perceived.

Human rights groups have said that tens of thousands of people, mainly Uyghur but also other Muslim monitories, have been interned at re-education camps in Xinjiang that are little more than prisons. The Chinese authorities have said this is a misrepresentation.

AP reported that the Kazakh foreign ministry had confirmed that 2,000 ethnic Kazakhs were relocating from western China to Kazakhstan. The Chinese government has not commented.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019

European human rights court fines Azerbaijan

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JAN. 10 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Azerbaijan to pay journalist Khadija Ismayilova 16,750 euros compensation for failing to investigate a 2012 blackmail campaign against her that hinged around an online sex video.

The ruling damages Azerbaijan’s already-poor reputation for media rights just as it prepares to become a major gas supplier to Europe.

Azerbaijan “had had a duty to investigate. However, there had been significant flaws and delays in the investigation, even though there had been obvious leads,” the ECHR said in a statement.

The ECHR, though, stopped short of blaming the Azerbaijani government for the blackmail. “It had not been possible to establish ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ that the State itself had been responsible for the very serious invasion of Ms Ismayilova’s privacy,” it said.

Her supporters said the government tried to intimidate Ms Ismayilova, one of Azerbaijan’s most high-profile journalists, because she had been investigating corruption claims against Azerbaijani Pres. Ilham Aliyev.

When it failed, her supporters said, officials fabricated evidence that she had been involved with corruption. She served 537 days in prison, being released in May 2016. Azerbaijani officials have not commented.

This year, Azerbaijan is expected to start pumping gas from its Caspian Sea fields to Europe along the so-called Southern Gas Corridor.

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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019

FlyDubai starts up flights to Tashkent

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DEC. 22 (The Conway Bulletin) — UAE’s government-owned budget airline FlyDubai will start flying to Tashkent, another sign that the Uzbek tourist industry is booming. Uzbek officials announced the deal after meeting UAE officials. FlyDubai, which targets tourists, will take over the Dubai-Tashkent route from Emirates Airline, which is more business-focused.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019