JAN. 20 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Roughly 1,000 people protested outside Georgia’s presidential palace to demand that President Mikheil Saakashvili resign, one of the biggest political demonstrations since a parliamentary election in October. Georgians are due to vote in a presidential election in Oct. 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 121, published on Jan. 25 2013)
JAN. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – It may, at times, feel slow, but Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is opening up Turkmenistan. Media reported that he has instructed one of his ministers to study entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for Turkmenistan, which has a reputation for being one of the most closed and repressive countries in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 121, published on Jan. 25 2013)
JAN. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan’s autocratic president, sacked the head of the state’s natural gas company in a government reshuffle, media reported. Gas is Turkmenistan’s biggest income earner. Sahatmyrad Mammedov had headed Turkmengaz for less than a year.
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(News report from Issue No. 120, published on Jan. 18 2013)
JAN. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s prosecutor-general has accused the military police under the former government of President Mikheil Saakashvili of setting up gay honey traps to blackmail prominent Georgians into supporting them, media reported. Since losing a parliamentary election in Oct., Mr Saakashvili’s former administration has faced a series of criminal and misconduct accusations.
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(News report from Issue No. 120, published on Jan. 18 2013)
JAN. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Over the past decade, it’s become an increasingly familiar story. At almost every budget, the Azerbaijani authorities have boosted spending on weapons and other military hardware.
This year, though, the jump in military spending was more significant than normal.
According to media reports, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev said that military spending would hit $3.7b in 2013, up from 3b in 2012. A decade ago, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) estimated that Azerbaijan spent roughly $414m on its defence budget.
And Azerbaijan is not short of neighbours it considers to be problematic.
Azerbaijan’s military shopping spree is aimed mainly at Armenia. The two countries are still officially at war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. A 1994 ceasefire keeps the peace around Nagorno-Karabakh but shootouts and death puncture this peace every week.
Azerbaijan’s relations with Iran have worsened considerably over the past 18 months too.
There have been a number of reported shootouts on their border. In Baku, the Azerbaijani authorities have arrested several people accused of being Iranian agents. The Iranians have also arrested several Azerbaijanis in Iran.
The Azerbaijani authorities are unlikely to relax their policy of rearmament any time soon.
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(News report from Issue No. 120, published on Jan. 18 2013)
JAN. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s prosecutor-general has accused the military police under the former government of President Mikheil Saakashvili of setting up gay honey traps to blackmail prominent Georgians into supporting them, media reported. Since losing a parliamentary election in Oct., Mr Saakashvili’s former administration has faced a series of criminal and misconduct accusations.
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(News report from Issue No. 120, published on Jan. 18 2013)
DEC. 29 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – David Usupashvili, speaker of Georgia’s parliament, has suggested that the national legislature may move back to Tbilisi as early as spring 2013, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Since October 2012, Georgia’s parliament has been based in a new building in Kutaisi, 230km from Tbilisi.
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(News report from Issue No. 119, published on Jan. 11 2013)
DEC. 26 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik authorities flirted with blocking up to 131 websites ahead of a presidential election at the start of the year, media reported. An order to block the websites, mainly news and social media, was circulated on Dec. 20, only to be cancelled a week later. Tajikistan periodically blocks websites.
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(News report from Issue No. 118, published on Dec. 28 2012)
DEC. 14 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gagik Tsarukyan, leader of Prosperous Armenia, the second largest party in the Armenian parliament, announced he would neither field a candidate in February’s presidential election nor publicly support any of the other candidates, media reported. His rivals said this move undermined the election.
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(News report from Issue No. 118, published on Dec. 28 2012)
DEC. 27 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev pardoned and released from jail 87 prisoners, including journalists, human rights activists and political opponents, state media reported. The Azerbaijani authorities have clamped down heavily on their opponents over the past couple of years.
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(News report from Issue No. 118, published on Dec. 28 2012)