JUNE 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia said one of its soldiers had been killed in a shootout with Azerbaijan around the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh. Armenia and Azerbaijan sporadically clash around Nagorno-Karabakh where a shaky 1994 ceasefire maintains a fragile peace.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The number of cars imported into Azerbaijan dropped by around 50% in the first five months of the year, media reported quoting official statistics.
Between January and May, 13,912 passenger cars were imported into the country, down from 27,444 during the same period last year.
The slump in car imports into Azerbaijan is probably a result of a number of factors.
These include a general economic downturn in the region, linked to a recession in Russia and a drop in oil and gas prices. Russia’s economy drives the former Soviet region and oil and gas is the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s economy.
Also, earlier this year Azerbaijan devalued its manat currency by a third, making imports more expensive.
And in 2014, the Azerbaijani government passed a law which banned car imports not using the higher grade Euro-4 fuel type.
This meant that many older cars from Europe could no longer be imported into Azerbaijan.
The knock on effect of this slump in demand is hitting car prices in Azerbaijan too, economist Vugar Bayramov told the azernews.az website.
He said that as inflation has picked up in Azerbaijan, it has pushed up the price of a new cars but the value for older cars has fallen. “Our monitoring shows that the prices of old cars decreased by 7%,” he said.
Mr Bayramov also said that banks in Azerbaijan had also tightened their finance requirements for cars, requiring a downpayment for financing of 50%, up from 20% earlier.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – An interview with an alleged British tourist in Azerbaijan has triggered allegations of forgery. The interview, broadcast on domestic Azerbaijani TV, showed a man who introduced himself as James Bonar speaking broken English. “It is fantasy,” he said when asked of Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan banned poultry imports from neighbouring Iran after a reported outbreak of bird flu, media reported quoting a government official who works in the ministry of agriculture’s veterinary department. Iran reported bird flu in the north of the country this month.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US Congress said that its ethics committee was investigating whether SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned energy company, paid for a 2013 trip to Baku for 10 congressmen and 32 staff members.
Congress’ rules ban foreign governments paying for overseas trips. All the Congressmen implicated in the investigation deny any wrong-doing and have said that they were unaware that SOCAR had paid for their trips to a conference in Baku.
The Houston Chronicle reported that the focus of the investigation are hundreds of thousands of dollars paid out by SOCAR to two Texas-based non-profit organisations which then paid for trips to Baku.
Azerbaijan’s lobbying techniques have attracted more and more criticism over the past few years.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – One British national was killed in a car crash in central Baku, media reported. He had been working on the European Games. At the start of Games a bus crashed into Austrian swimmers in the Olympic Village badly injuring one of them.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan wants to sponsor a Formula 1 team, sports minister Azad Rakhimov said. Mr Rakhimov said he would like to see a team race in the Azerbaijani national colours. Baku hosts an F1 race in 2016 and wants to increase its profile by sponsoring sports teams.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Yaver Jamalov, Azerbaijan’s defence industry minister, said he wanted to increase the number of countries that Azerbaijan exported its weapons and ammunition to. Mr Jamalov said he had concluded a deal with Iraq’s government to supply hundreds of grenade launchers and mortars.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was one of a handful of international leaders to head to Azerbaijan for the opening ceremony of the European Games. In Baku, he held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Turkmenistan wants to send gas to Europe via Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Iran intend to set up a joint bank in Tehran, Iran’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, Mohsen Pak Ayeen, told the Trend news agency.
Mr Ayeen was speaking to reporters at the sidelines of a conference in Tehran. He didn’t give any more details on how the bank would be developed.
If the bank did take off, it would underline just how far relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have improved over the past few years. Under former president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Azerbaijan and Iran were locked in a cycle of sabre rattling, arresting spies and threatening war.
Since then, though, with Hassan Rouhani in power in Tehran since 2013 and the international community gradually accepting the re-emergence of Iran, the two neighbours have made a show of swapping prisoners, hosting bilateral defence and diplomatic meetings and talking up trade relations.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)