NOV. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three miners died in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, after a monorail accident at the Saranskaya mine, local media reported. Five other workers were injured, one critically. Steelmaker ArcelorMittal Temirtau owns the Saranskaya mine and said it will investigate the accident.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)
BAKU, OCT. 17/18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Heavy rainfall flooded parts of Baku forcing dozens of people to flee their homes and triggering a round of grumbling by locals about a lack of investment into essential infrastructure.
This is important because the popularity of Azerbaijan’s government has fallen sharply over the last couple of years with a drop in living standards linked to a devaluation in the local currency and a squeeze in GDP levels. Earlier this year, virtually unprecedented protests against a drop in living standards swept across a handful of towns in rural Azerbaijan.
This was the second major flood in Baku this year. The ministry of ecology described a flood in September as the worst for 36 years.
Reaction from Baku residents showed the levels of frustration felt by people. Aygun, a 28-year old teacher, said the government should start improving infrastructure in Baku and its environs.
“In the villages around Baku, the roads are all unpaved. So even after a day of rain, we get stuck in the mud,” she said.
And Emin, a 33-year-old consultant, agreed. He blamed corruption and mismanagement for the flooding.
“If they are going to build a new sewage system, they will need millions of manat,” he said. “But I’m not sure they have the money now when the oil prices are down. I don’t even know if they have the will.” He also referenced a cartoon on social media which showed the mayor of Baku, Hajibala Abutalibov, sitting and calmly ignoring the rain.
“I think the message is that it’s always ordinary people who suffer, never the authorities,” Emin said. “And that’s the reality.”
The government declined to comment but a spokesman for Azersu, Azerbaijan’s water operator, said the city’s sewage system needed updating.
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(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)
OCT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nine people, including six soldiers, died in a helicopter crash in east Uzbekistan, media reported. The helicopter that crashed was a Mi-171, a Soviet-built troop transport. Uzbek media described the crash as an accident but didn’t give any more details. There have been several accidents involving the Mi- 171 over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)
SEPT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A gas leak caused an explosion at an oil platform in the Guneshli oil field, off the coast of Baku.
Although nobody was injured or killed, the fire at Platform 19, will once again raise concerns about safety at oil platforms in Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea, less than a year after at least 31 rig workers were killed at two other rigs in a storm.
SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company operated the platform.
It said that the fire had burned for a full day before it was brought under control by fire-fighters.
SOCAR said that all 49 workers were evacuated during the fire.
Azerbaijan’s oil industry is still trying to recover its credibility after the rig fire in December, the deadliest since the Piper Alpha fire in the North Sea killed at least 167 people in 1988.
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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
AUG. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A fire in a printing warehouse in northeast Moscow has killed 17 migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan, the Russian authorities said.
The fires once again raise concerns over safety standards for migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia. In January, 12 migrant workers died in a clothing factory in Moscow.
Emergency services said that the fire at the printing warehouse was started by a faulty light on the first floor. Smoke spread quickly through a lift shaft to the fourth floor where the workers were sleeping. Most of the workers died in their sleep through smoke inhalation and another died later in hospital.
Unconfirmed reports also said that the factory mainly hired women.
Russia remains a major source of employment for workers from Central Asia and the S.Caucasus although there have been accusations of substandard working conditions.
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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)
JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An explosion killed at least two workers and injured at least 22 at an arms factory near Baku.
Officially the number of dead and injured from the blast has not risen since the initial assessment but workers said that many more could have been trapped inside.
Azerbaijan’s ministry of defence, which owns the factory in the town of Shrivan, said: “Sparks from the last batch of military products earmarked for disposal caused the explosion.”
The State Prosecutor said it was evaluating whether to open a criminal investigation.
Azerbaijan buys most of its armaments from Russia, where it also sends some of its old arms for disposal. Over the last few years, though, it has developed its own weapons manufacturing sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)
TBILISI, JULY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Emergency workers will, over the next few days, finish clearing a landslide that has blocked for a fortnight the only road linking Armenia and Georgia to Russia.
The landslide has exposed just how reliant Armenia, and to a lesser extent Georgia, is on the Upper Lars highway as a link to Russia. The only other direct land routes across the Caucasus mountains to Russia thread through the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and are currently closed.
Georgian and Armenian officials said that the stretch of road near the border with Russia and Georgia should reopen on July 12. It has been blocked since the landslide hit on June 23.
And the blockage has forced politicians to look at how reliant they are on this single route into and out of Russia. At a cabinet meeting, Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan said that relying on the Upper Lars route was dangerous.
“It is time to explore alternative routes,” media quoted him as saying. Armenia is largely isolated in the South Caucasus. It borders two sworn enemies, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and sees Russia, through Georgia, and Iran, to its south, as its only possible partners.
While trade with Iran has improved and could grow further with the easing of Western sanctions on Iran, Armenia’s reliance on Russia has grown markedly.
Armenia turned down an Association Agreement with the EU in favour of joining the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union. This also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Armenia is the only country that doesn’t share a border with other members.
In need of alternatives to the Upper Lars route, Armenia asked Georgia to consider opening routes through South Ossetia and Abkhazia, regions Georgian forces fought Russia for control over in a 2008 war.
Apparently appreciating the seriousness of the scenario, Georgia’s PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili agreed to start talks, marking a potential important shift in relations between Georgia and its rebel regions.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JUNE 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A major mudslide has blocked one of the most important trade routes between Georgia and Russia for more than a week, media reported. The mudslide on June 23 at the Upper Lars checkpoint is especially important for Armenia. It is the only major route linking Russia and Armenia. Armenia is largely reliant on goods being imported in from Russia. It has decent relations with Iran to the south but poor relations with neighbours Azerbaijan and Turkey.
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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)
JUNE 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A blast at an oil storage facility in Turkmenbashi in western Turkmenistan killed seven people, local media reported. A government official later denied the report but it would be unusual for a report of this nature to be erroneous. If it is confirmed, the incident will be a blow to the reputation of Turkmenistan’s main Caspian Sea port.
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(News report from Issue No. 287, published on July 1 2016)
JUNE 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An EgyptAir passenger plane flying to Beijing from Cairo diverted to Urgench airport in western Uzbekistan after Egyptian authorities received information that a bomb had been planted on the plane. The plane was evacuated and searched before being allowed to fly on to China after the Uzbek authorities gave the all-clear.
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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)