JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was one of a handful of international leaders to head to Azerbaijan for the opening ceremony of the European Games. In Baku, he held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Turkmenistan wants to send gas to Europe via Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon wrapped up a trip to Central Asia with a speech to university students in Ashgabat in which he warned that democracy and human rights in the region were being increasingly marginalised.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has extended its military draft, websites reported, perhaps to bolster units along the increasingly tense border with Afghanistan.
“According to incoming reports, the majority of young men, who have been recently drafted in Lebap and Balkan velayats, will be sent to the military units based in Kushka, i.e. near the Turkmen-Afghan border,” the website reported.
Senior military officials have previously said that they need to boost the number of soldiers in the army to counter perceived threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Last year reports from the border said that Turkmen army units clashed with Taliban units in a number of skirmishes. This year, though, reports from the border of military activity have been much reduced.
Even so, the Chronicles of Turkmenistan website reported that the Turkmen military has extended the draft for con- scripts to July 25 from the end of June.
“According to incoming reports, the majority of young men, who have been recently drafted in Lebap and Balkan velayats, will be sent to the military units based in Kushka, i.e. near the Turkmen-Afghan border,” the website reported.
The countries that border Afghanistan — Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan — have been warning that the Taliban is preparing to move to Central Asia.
Russia has supported this assessment and sent various military advisers to the region as well as offering to boost its military presence along the border.
But many Western analysts have scorned this viewpoint and said instead that the narrative has been designed to bolster strict military and authoritarian rule in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan increased the amount of cargo and people it transported around the country, the government said. It’s not possible to independently verify the numbers but Turkmenistan has made several high profile announcements over the past months about boosting its transport sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Official Turkmen websites reported another rise in GDP, throwing into serious doubt the authenticity of official economic statistics. The official turkmenistan.ru said GDP had registered a year-on- year increase in the first five months of the year of 9.5% despite a currency devaluation and low global energy prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Football, or soccer as Americans prefer to call the sport, is not Turkmenistan’s strong point.
It is currently ranked 173rd in the world, out of 209 teams. In Central Asia, only Kyrgyzstan is rated worse in 177th position.
But Turkmenistan’s status in the football world has just dipped further after it lost to the US protectorate of Guam 1-0.
This was Guam’s first ever World Cup qualifier victory.
Guam has a population of 200,000 and is not noted as a football powerhouse either. It last played a World Cup qualifier in 2000, losing 16-0 to Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s first communications satellite, launched in April, has started operations, the Turkmen government said. The satellite will improve broadcasts over the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Apparently not content with a booming gas industry, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said that he wanted to develop an electronics industry. Mr Berdymukhamedov has been keen to push Turkmen industry.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has agreed to increase the amount of electricity it supplies to Afghanistan by four times over the next five years, media reported quoting senior officials. Turkmenistan has become an increasingly important regional power and energy supplier.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s parliament said that it had started considering whether to scrap a law that bans people over the age of 70 from being president. This may sound arcane and fringe even, but it is also vitally important.
Repealing this law would allow current president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to remain in power for as long as he wanted.
There are already very few checks and balances on his powers. And, according to Eurasianet, the man chairing the commission looking into the idea of scrapping the law is Mr Berdymukhamedov himself. At 57-years-old, Mr Berymukhamedov may be thinking about his future.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)