SEPT. 29 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — The investment vehicle of Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal sold its 50% stake in Kazakhstan-based energy company Caspian Investment Resources to Chinese Sinopec for an undisclosed amount. Mr Mittal bought the stake in 2007 for $970m from Russia’s Lukoil which still owns 50% of the company.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 9, published on Sept. 30 2010)
SEPT. 22 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two blasts ruptured a pipeline carrying gas through Kazakhstan to Russia, the Kazakh emergencies ministry said. Nobody was injured in the blasts although gas exports along the route were suspended. It is unclear what caused the blasts and how gas exports to Russia from Central Asia will be affected.
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(News report from Issue No. 8, published on Sept. 23 2010)
SEPT. 21 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Four Chinese bombers and two fighter jets flew into Kazakhstan for China’s first cross border air strike exercise, Chinese state media reported. The China and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is holding a two week long military exercise in Kazakhstan.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 8, published on Sept. 23 2010)
SEPT. 21 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Showing its appetite for foreign expansion, Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), the London-listed Kazakh mining company, bought the 50% stake of Brazilian iron ore mine Bahia Minerals it didn’t already own for $670m. ENRC is one of the world’s biggest ferroalloy producers.
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(News report from Issue No. 8, published on Sept. 23 2010)
SEPT. 14 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan agreed to restart oil supplies to Europe through Ukraine’s pipelines after it cut the route in January over a cost dispute. About 8m tonnes of oil per year from Kazakhstan will transit Ukraine.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 7, published on Sept. 16 2010)
SEPT. 14 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Fire fighters in Kazakhstan extinguished forest fires which had threatened to spread to Russia. The fires in northern Kazakhstan had been burning for a week.
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(News report from Issue No. 7, published on Sept. 16 2010)
SEPT. 16 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Created in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has a broad remit to promote economic, cultural and military cooperation between its 6 members; China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Certainly, the SCO has initiated a handful of economic and infrastructure projects but its roots are in military cooperation beginning in the mid-1990s. Some Western observers say the SCO could one day act as a counterbalance to NATO.
For now, though, SCO is politically too fractured to rival NATO and acts more as a regional forum to discuss anti-terrorist measures and energy policy than coordinate defence policies. Its regional anti-terrorist headquarters are based in Tashkent.
Notably, the SCO did not act during Kyrgyzstan’s revolution in April or in June during ethnic violence in the south of the country when hundreds died.
In 2008, the SCO and its members chose not to back Russia and recognise the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
Still, the large scale and highly publicised war games are the SCO’s most eye catching activity. Peace Mission 2010, the SCO military exercise which started on Sept. 13 in Kazakhstan, is the biggest military exercise since Russia hosted it in 2007.
The SCO does appear to have wider geographic ambitions. India, Iran, Pakistan and Mongolia have SCO observer status, Sri Lanka and Belarus are dialogue partners and Afghanistan has been invited to SCO summits as a guest.
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(News report from Issue No. 7, published on Sept. 16 2010)
SEPT. 16 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s President since independence in 1991, may stay in power until 2020, one of his advisers said. Under constitutional changes in 2007, the 70-year-old Mr Nazarbayev can run for as many presidential terms as he wants. The next presidential election is in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 7, published on Sept. 16 2010)
SEPT. 13 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — A 2 week long military exercise by the China and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) started in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, Russia and China sent 1,000 soldiers each, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan sent 150 soldiers each. Uzbekistan declined to send any. It is the biggest SCO military exercise since 2007.
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(News report from Issue No. 7, published on Sept. 16 2010)
SEPT. 9 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dry and windy weather fanned forest fires in the Pavlodar region of northern Kazakhstan. The fires killed at least 6 people and spread to Siberia in Russia. Rain is forecast. Russia has fought a series of forest fires this summer which have severely damaged its grain harvest.
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(News report from Issue No. 6, published on Sept. 9 2010)