SEPT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulmurod Khalimov, the former head of Tajikistan’s special police force and a US-trained sniper, was named top commander in Iraq by the extremist IS group. Khalimov defected to the IS last year. In August, the US State Department placed a reward of up to $3m for information on the location of Khalimov.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sweden’s Telia Company sold its 60% stake in Tcell to the Aga Khan Fund, which owned 40% of the Tajik telecoms operator . Telia said it will earn $39m from the sale. The sale is in line with Telia’s goal of dropping stakes in companies it owned in Central Asia and the South Caucasus after investigations into corruption practices in the region were launched.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Mukhiddin Kabiri, leader-in-exile of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), was placed on the Interpol wanted list. The Tajik government accuses Mr Kabiri of terrorism and fraud. Over the past year, it has accused the IRPT of an attempted coup previously and arrested its leaders.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pakistan said it wanted Turkmenistan to be more involved in the CASA-1000 electricity transmission project and drop plans to build an alternative electricity supply route. CASA-1000 is a World Bank-backed $1.2b plan to bring electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turkmenistan has pledged to either join the project or supply electricity to Pakistan via alternative routes.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik government sold a 50% stake in Tajik Azot, a fertiliser producer, to China’s Henan Zhong Holding, a chemical company. Under the deal, the Chinese company pledged to invest $360m to modernise and operate the plant, giving Tajikistan’s economy a boost. In 2014, the government seized Tajik Azot, previously owned by Ukrainian businessman Dmitro Firtash, after Firtash was arrested in Vienna.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Tajik court freed a high-ranking member of the Islamic Renaissance Party as part of a mass amnesty. Zurafo Rakhmoni was the only high-ranking woman arrested last year after an alleged attempted coup. She was serving a two-year sentence. More than 12,000 prisoners were freed in the amnesty. Ms Rakhmoni was the only one to be freed among jailed IRPT leaders.
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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)
AUG. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US State Department placed a reward of up to $3m for information on the location of Gulmurod Khalimov, the former head of Tajikistan’s special police force and a US-trained sniper defected to the IS extremist group last year. Shortly after arriving in Syria, Mr Khalimov was injured in an airstrike but has seemingly recovered and been promoted within IS to a senior command position.
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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)
AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the Olympics in Rio, Uzbekistan won four gold medals, including three in boxing. Kazakhstan once again pulled in a decent haul, winning three golds, including a first ever swimming win, five silvers and nine bronzes. Tajikistan also won its first gold medal since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Dilshod Nazarov won gold in the hammer, becoming an instant national hero in Tajikistan. In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan won a gold medal in taekwondo, Georgia won golds in wrestling and weightlifting and Armenia won a wrestling gold, its first for 20 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)
AUG. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to boost the US’ regional profile, US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a summit with all five foreign secretaries from Central Asia. Dubbed C5 +1, the meeting was a follow-up from its inaugural session in Samarkand last year. It’s important because the US has been accused of losing interest in the region since pulling its military out of Afghanistan in 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)
JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s Central Bank said that the flow of remittances from abroad fell by 22% in the first half of 2016, compared to the same period last year. The Bank said that a sustained recession in Russia has slashed the value and the volume of remittances. Tajikistan is one of the world’s top remittance-dependent countries. Tajikistan and the rest of the region have been having to cope with the fall from a collapse in oil prices and a recession in Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)