Tag Archives: Azerbaijan

Free jailed reporter lobby group tells Azerbaijan

AUG. 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Paris-based lobby group Reporters Without Borders issued a statement criticising the continued internment of Azerbaijani journalist Afgan Mukhtarli who was kidnapped from near his home in Tbilisi three months ago. The group said that Mr Mukhtarli, who is currently being held in an Azerbaijani prison, is in poor health. Georgian officials have denied that they collaborated with Azerbaijan to kidnap Mr Mukhtarli. He is considered a dissident writer and had fled to Georgia a couple of years earlier.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Iran drops tax on foodstuffs to Central Asia

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SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran has lifted an export tax on foodstuffs being sent to Central Asia and the South Caucasus, media quoted Abdollah Mohajer, the head of Mazandaran Province Chamber of Commerce, as saying. The export tax had covered a range of products including pistachio nuts, cabbages, dates and raisins. Ditching the export tax is likely to drop the price of sending foodstuffs to Central Asia by up to 20%. Iran is increasingly trying to tap into Central Asia and the South Caucasus as natural export markets for is various products.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Azerbaijan restarts gas imports from Russia

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AUG. 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s Gazprom started pumping gas to Armenia again after month-long repairs to the North Caucasus-Transcaucasus pipeline that crosses Georgia were finished. The pipeline had been the only import route for gas into Armenia, although over the past couple of years Armenia has been negotiating gas supply deals with neighbouring Iran.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Newspapers accuse Aliyev of corruption

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SEPT. 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A series of newspapers in Europe, including the Guardian, published reports of alleged money laundering and bribe-paying by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his family through London.

The reports said that Mr Aliyev and his family had set up a series of offshore shell companies that pushed cash around the world and paid to lobby influential journalists and politicians.

This is not the first time that Mr Aliyev had been accused of laundering money and bribe-paying. He has refuted previous allegations. Human rights groups accuse Mr Aliyev of presiding over a corrupt regime.
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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

BP says operations resume at Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz

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AUG. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP said that it had resumed pumping gas out of the Shah Deniz gas field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea after a two week planned maintenance period closed the operation. The Shah Deniz gas field is Azerbaijan’s main gas field and is being expanded to send gas to Europe. Its second phase expansion is seen as critical to future European gas supplies,

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Forest fire rages in Azerbaijan

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SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has sent 520 soldiers to help try and put out forest fires around the city of Gabala, media reported. The emergencies ministry has said that high winds and unseasonably hot temperatures had whipped up the fires. Fire teams across Georgia and Armenia have also been dealing with forest fires this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Israeli drone-maker may have attacked Armenian soldiers

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AUG. 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) –The Israeli government has suspended the licence of weapons manufacturer Aeronautics Defense Systems for allegedly showing off a new drone weapon to Azerbaijani clients by attacking Armenian forces in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The case shows both the growing military partnership between Israel and Azerbaijan and also the lengths that Israeli defence companies will go to win contracts with their Azerbaijani counterparts.

Aeronautics Defense Systems made the disclosure to the Israeli stock market.
“The Defense Ministry’s Defense Export Controls Agency informed the company that it was suspending the marketing and export permit for the company’s Orbiter 1K model UAV to a significant customer,” it said in a statement.

A couple of weeks earlier, Israeli newspaper had reported on a leaked complaint made to the Israeli defence ministry. It said that officials from Aeronautics Defense Systems had travelled to Azerbaijan in July to show off their Orbiter 1K suicide drone that is packed with explosives and deliberately flown into an enemy position.

During the demonstration, the reports said, Azerbaijani officials asked Aeronautics Defense Systems to attack an Armenian position in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The two controllers of the drone refused but two other members of the Aeronautics Defense Systems team took the controls and attacked the Armenian position.

The alliance between Azerbaijan and Israel has been growing. Azerbaijan is one of the biggest importers of Israeli military kit and in 2012 Israel also reportedly made a deal with Azerbaijan to use its airbases in a preemptive attack on neighbouring Iran.
Armenia-backed forces currently control the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh which hey fought over in the 1990s.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Bomdardier-Azerbaijan corruption trial begins

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SEPT. 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial started in Stockholm of Evegny Pavlov, a 37-year-old Russian national, who is accused of bribing Azerbaijani officials in 2013 to win a $340m contract for Canadian train maker Bombardier.

Mr Pavlov was head of the Baku office of Bombardier, reporting to the company’s Europe office in Stockholm when it won a contract to replace and install train signals across Azerbaijan.

It had partnered with an unknown Azerbaijani company called Trans-Signal-Rabita to win the contract. Trans-Signal-Rabita was owned by employees of the Azerbaijani ministry of transport awarding the contract.

His lawyers have argued that he was too junior to influence the process and that any corruption issues lie higher up. Bombardier has denied any wrongdoing.

Five other Bombardier employees have been described as suspects, including Peter Cedervall, a senior official in the Stockholm office.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

International Bank of Azerbaijan issues debt 3 months after default

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SEPT. 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s troubled IBA bank issued several new Eurobonds, the final part of a restructuring plan for $3.3b of debt that has angered its foreign creditors.

Reuters reported that IBA had issued a $1b Eurobond due in 2024 with a 3.5% coupon and that it had issued seven other new Eurobonds, due between December 2017 and September 2032, with an additional total value of $2.266b.

The reaction to the debt issue from foreign buyers was mixed with some welcoming IBA’s return to the market but others warning that there has been little structural changes in the Azerbaijani banking sector and that a repeat of the debt default was a real possibility.

In a statement, Khalid Ahadov, Chairman of IBA, said: “The successful closing of the restructuring process earlier today is a key step in the Bank’s plan to ensure its long-term viability.”

He also said that the bank planned to transfer bad assets to the state’s bad debt vehicle Aqrarkredit. “The combination of these two transactions will restore the Bank’s capital position, provide the Bank with the necessary financial strength to implement its business plan,” he said.

Traders in London told Reuters that demand for the IBA Eurobonds had been strong. In May, IBA had suddenly said that it was going to default on debt repayments. It pushed through a restructuring plan that effectively forced its creditors to take a 20% cut in their investments. At the time, debt holders said the restructuring plan had caused massive damage to Azerbaijan’s reputation as a place to invest.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Aliyec sues French reporters for libel

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SEPT. 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev started a libel case against two French journalists and a broadcaster for describing him as a dictator.

The libel claims focus on a report broadcast in 2015 from Azerbaijan by France 2 called: ‘My president is travelling on business’. Introducing the report, presenter Elise Lucet called Azerbaijan a “dictatorship” and reporter Laurent Richard described Mr Aliyev as a “despot” and a “dictator”.

The image-conscious Mr Aliyev is looking for a symbolic 1 euro in damages but also wants sanctions on the broadcaster and two reporters. His lawyers have said that the report was sensationalised and not based on fair reporting.

Azerbaijan is considered one of the worst countries in the world for media freedom. It has rowed with both the EU and the US over the past few years because of what free speech activists have said has been a systematic clampdown on journalists.

In 2011, the youngest daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, lost a libel case against French website rue89.com for calling her a “dictator’s daughter”.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)