MARCH 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Ashgabat are stopping couples from kissing and holding hands in public, Chronicles of Turkmenistan, an opposition website based in Vienna, reported. Chronicles of Turkmenistan said police were trying to impose a morality code.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The global price of cotton, a key export for Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, fell nearly 2% after the US government said that there would probably be an over-supply this year, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s aviation sector received a boost when the national carrier took delivery of its first Boeing 777 passenger plane and also opened a new terminal at Ashgabat international airport, media reported.
The Boeing is the first of two on order for Turkmenistan Airlines. Turkmenistan has pledged to boost both its international and domestic air services.
Turkmenistan’s Boeing 777-200LR is a long-range plane that can carry between 315 and 450 passengers, depending on the seating arrangements.
The specific 200LR model entered service in 2006 and was a longer range version of previous Boeing 777 models. In 2006 it had the longest range of any commercial passenger plane and was dubbed the “Worldliner” because it could, theoretically, connect any two airports.
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(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan has nearly completed work on building its first communications satellite, media reported. Quoting a Turkmen government statement, media reported that testing on the satellite had finished and that it would launch later this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Turkmen authorities opened an all-women prison, the Central Asia Online website reported quoting a prison official. The prison will hold 850 women and include a 30-bed maternity ward. Soviet-era prisons in Central Asia are regarded as some of the harshest in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Turkmenistan have imprisoned a seventh man for refusing to sign up for conscription, the Forum 18 website reported.
Forum 18 reported that Pavel Paymov, a 23-year-old Jehovah’s Witness member, was sent to one year in prison in January for dodging conscription.
According to the article, Turkmenistan does not offer an alternative to military service. This, apparently, breaks international human rights laws.
Turkmenistan’s constitution calls on men to serve for two years in the military between the ages of 18 and 27.
Earlier this month, Turkmenistan mobilised its reserve forces after an attack on its border with Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Already the biggest customer of Turkmen gas, China has said it wants to boost its export of various products into Turkmenistan. Media reported a visit by a Chinese delegation to Turkmenistan, underscoring the close ties between the two countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan has mobilised its military reserves along its border with Afghanistan after an alleged firefight with Taliban militants in February, media reported. A Taliban spokesman has denied any involvement in the firefight that killed a handful of Turkmen border guards.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s parliament voted in a new anticorruption law, although in reality it is little more than window dressing.
The law basically states that civil servants are restricted from private business and opening foreign bank accounts. The thinking is, it seems, that government officials are prone to corruption temptations. Perhaps by banning officials from private business, the government hopes to look pro-active in defeating corruption.
It has a long way to go. Corruption is rife in Turkmenistan, as the US-based Heritage Foundation noted in its global report on economies in 2014.
“Corruption is widespread, with public officials often forced to bribe their way into their positions,” the Heritage Foundation wrote on Turkmenistan.
Out of the 178 countries it ranked, the Heritage Foundation placed Turkmenistan at the bottom for both “property rights” and “freedom from corruption”.
Passing legislation is one thing but acting on it is another.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan hosted a meeting of the Caspian Sea littoral states’ fisheries organisations in Ashgabat on March 4 to discuss a draft agreement on exploiting the sea, media reported. The meeting is part of a series ahead of a summit in Astrakhan, Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)