JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev signed into law a decree that increased fines handed out to people who swear on the street and drink in office blocks, media reported.Police officers can now hand out fines of 15,000 som ($200) for swearing in public and 10,000 som for drinking in the workplace.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Astana gave Bigeldi Gabdullin, the 61-year-old editor of the Central Asia Monitor newspaper, a five year suspended jail sentence after he pleaded guilty to trying to extort bribes from officials. Media freedom activists said Gabdullin had only avoided a jail sentence because he had been pressured into admitting guilt.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the Turkish newspaper Sabah, Socar Turkey Energy director general Zaur Gahramanov said the company was committed to opening a chain of petrol stations throughout Turkey.
Socar is bidding to buy the 1,785 petrol stations belonging to Austria’s OMV in Turkey. Even if Socar’s bid fails it will look to buy up petrol stations in Turkey. Socar owns the Star Refinery in Izmir. The $6b refinery is due to start production in April 2018 and is Socar’s biggest overseas investment.
“The acquisition of OMV Petrol Ofisi is the most suitable option for Socar, but we have alternatives,” he said. “We can launch talks on the acquisition of another company or create a new network in Turkey.”
Socar owns a network of petrol stations in Georgia and has been looking to expand. The collapse in oil and gas prices since 2014 has forced Azerbaijan to change its focus to downstream products and services.
OMV bought the petrol stations between 2006 and 2010 for $2.5b. Aramco, Petromium-C consortium and Vitol are also bidding to buy the petrol station network.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan said that it was prepared to enter negotiations with Iran over a disputed gas bill of $1.8b, although it still retains the right to take the dispute to an international court. Turkmenistan cut off gas supplies to Iran last month after accusing it of not paying debts it said had built up from 2007/8. The row has surprised observers who have watched Turkmenistan-Iran relations improve.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting increasingly tight ties between Armenia and Russia, Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan ordered his government to start preparing processes that would allow Russians to enter Armenia on their internal passports, essentially an ID document. This, potentially, opens up Armenia a holiday destination to the millions of Russians who don’t hold an international passport. Surrounded by its enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia is reliant on Russia for military, economic and energy ties.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f
ALMATY, JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering, a headline joint-venture set up in 2011 between Kazakhstan Engineering National Company and France’s Airbus Helicopters, has stopped manufacturing helicopters because of the economic slowdown, its CEO, Timur Tilinin, said in an interview with the pro-government Astana Times newspaper.
The company was licensed to manufacture the Eurocopter 145, a twin engine utility helicopter that can be used as passenger transport or for search and rescue missions. It can carry up to nine passengers and two crew.
Mr Tilinin said that Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering was the backbone of the Kazakh aviation industry and that it had manufactured 26 Eurocopter 145s since 2011, eight for the ministry of defence and 18 for the ministry of interior’s emergency service.
“Unfortunately, due to the (economic) crisis we halted the project,” he said. “In mid-2015, ECKE launched a transformation plan to move from pure manufacturing to, first, becoming the distributor of Airbus helicopters in all Central Asia and, second, performing maintenance of the aircraft. We do the maintenance of all the helicopters we have produced.”
Moving from manufacturing helicopters to being a distributor service centre will dent the prestige of the project. It also underlines just how heavily Kazakhstan has been hit by the economic downturn.
Government agencies, Eurocopter Kazakhstan Engineering’s only clients, have been hard hit.
Part of the distribution process involves reassembling helicopters which are manufactured in Germany and then dismantled for export.
Kazakhstan is striving to broaden out its industrial base away from oil and gas.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — YanAir, a small Ukrainian airline, is planning on running flights from Odessa to Tbilisi and Batumi, media reported. The new routes highlight the increase in air traffic to the South Caucasus. Batumi is being developed as Georgia’s main tourist hub.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said that it had found a new oil and gas field in the west of the country. The field, known as Ansagan, is located Zhylyoi region near Atyrau. Officials didn’t give any indication of the scale of the find but said instead that exploration was continuing. Kazakhstan’s economy is reliant on oil and gas.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f
JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia has banned chicken imports from six regions of Iran because of an outbreak of bird flu, media reported. Trade between Iran and Armenia has increased rapidly over the past few years meaning that the ban will hit chicken supplies in Armenia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f
ALMATY, JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a televised address to the nation lasting 9-1/2 minutes, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev described how he wanted to bring in a series of reforms that would shift power from the president to parliament.
The main proposals focused on how the government was formed. Currently,Mr Nazarbayev appoints all the key positions in government and the state’s main agencies. This was a task that he said he wanted to hand over to the PM. He also said that he wanted parliament to have more say over social and economic issues.
“The point of the proposed reform isina serious redistribution of powers and democratisation of the political system as a whole,” he said during this address in both Kazakh and Russian with his trademark formal and deadpan delivery.
The speech, though, was short on detail and lacked a timeframe for the proposed changes. Although the aim of the speech appears to be to burnish Mr Nazarbayev’s credentials as a democrat and to ease concerns that he doesn’t have a succession plan, the main reaction was derision.
In Almaty, Mikhail, 29, said: “This is another imitation and an attempt to shift the responsibility for worsening living conditions.”
And analysts said Mr Nazarbayev appeared eager to disengage from difficult social and employment policies but retain control of duties linked to foreign policy and security. “It’s almost like he wants to pass off responsibility for the really hard stuff,” said Bruce Pannier, a Central Asia analyst at RFE/RL.
Not everybody was downbeat.
“That sounds great, nonetheless these reforms require strengthening of mass media and freedom of speech,” said Galym, 26.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
