OCT. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbabguly Berdymukhamedov ordered an amnesty for more than 1,000 prisoners to mark the 24th anniversary of the country’s independence from the Soviet Union. Mr Berdymukhamedov issues amnesties for inmates to mark public holidays.
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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)
OCT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has forcibly evicted around 50,000 people from their homes in and around Ashgabat ahead of the 2017 Asian Indoors and Martial Arts Games, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report.
Researchers at Amnesty studied satellite images which they said showed evictions and demolitions between March 2014 and April 2015 in two Ashgabat neighbourhoods.
Ashgabat will host the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, a relatively minor Olympic event. It wants to impress visitors with a $2 Olympic Village and an extensive PR campaign on its readiness to open up to the world after decades of isolation.
Denis Krivosheev of Amnesty International said: “Instead of using the Games as an opportunity to clean up Turkmenistan’s human rights record, local authorities there have only succeeded in worsening living conditions for residents.”
Amnesty’s allegation, which the authorities have not refuted, will irritate the Turkmen government and further damage its image, just as it is trying to show the world a softer and more open side.
Analysis focused on Choganly and Shor, two so-called “dacha neighbourhoods” designated for holiday houses. More recently, though, Amnesty International said evictions were taking place in a suburb of Ashagbat too.
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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)
OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that Taliban fighters were hiding from Afghan government forces on an island in the Amu Darya, a river that marks the Afghan- Turkmen border. Worried about the impact on foreign investment, Turkmenistan has denied that Taliban activity along its border with Afghanistan is a threat to its security.
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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)
OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation will build a 400 megawatt gas-fired power plant in north Turkmenistan, a plant that will both increase electricity production and also extend the reach of the Turkmen power grid. The deal, worth $300m, was signed during Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s visit to Turkmenistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)
OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sumitomo Corporation, a Japanese holding focusing on industrial production, said it will build a $330m thermal power plant in the north- western part of Turkmenistan. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, another Japanese company, will provide the gas turbine for the new 400 megawatt plant. Japanese PM Shinzo Abe will visit Turkmenistan at the end of October to attend the signing of the deal.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan said construction of the TAPI pipeline that will, it is hoped, pump gas from fields in the east of the country to consumers in India would start in 2016. Earlier this year, Turkmenistan had pushed for TAPI to start by the end of 2015. TAPI is a $10b project that will cross Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov confirmed that the government will increase by 10% all salaries for state employees from next year.
In an official announcement in the state’s Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper, Mr Berdymukhamedov presented his budget for 2016.
“The State budget was drafted with consideration of the Decree on the President of Turkmenistan on a 10% increase in wages, pensions, state benefits and scholarships on January 1, 2016,” Neutral Turkmenistan reported.
Turkmenistan devalued its manat currency by 20% on Jan. 1 this year, hitting people’s real wages. Earlier this year Mr Berdymukhamedov said that he would go some way towards compensating people by raising government salaries but there had previously been no official confirmation of how or when this would happen.
And in a budget clearly designed to ward off a drop in economic growth linked to low energy prices, Mr Berdymukhamedov said he would fund the salary rise by selling off some state assets.
“The revenues of the State budget are to be replenished through the privatisation of state-run objects and enterprises and dwelling houses from the state housing stock and the distribution of the bonds of the state fund,” Neutral Turkmenistan said.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 23 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Japanese PM Shinzo Abe began a tour of the five Central Asian Stans designed to boost links with the region.
The trip started in Turkmenistan, where Mr Abe signed deals worth over $18b in the chemical and power sectors.
This was the first official visit by a Japanese PM to Turkmenistan, proof of the country’s growing status as a global energy exporter.
Stopovers in Dushanbe and Bishkek will also mark the first official visits to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan for a Japanese leader.
Central Asia has been attracting high-profile interest from Asian leaders over the past few years. In 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping completed a similar Grand Tour of the region and this year Indian PM Narendra Modi also visited all five Stans.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Several Japanese companies signed a framework agreement with the Turkmen government to supply equipment to the Galkynysh gas field, one of the largest in the world. Mitsubishi, Chiyoda, Sojits, Itochu and JGC are among the companies involved in the expansion of Galkynysh. Turkmenistan wants to expand Galkynysh to pump gas along a planned pipeline to India.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps with potential gas supplies to Europe in mind, Turkmenistan opened a shop in Tbilisi selling various national produce. Turkmenistan is exploring the potential of supplying the EU with gas. Georgia hosts a gas pipeline running west from the Caspian Sea.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)