DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a PR coup for Azerbaijan, the European Grand Prix which it staged last year will be renamed the Azerbaijani Grand Prix. The Azerbaijani authorities see sport and especially high profile events such as the Grand Prix as a way to promote the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)f
NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state tariff committee which sets prices for utilities such as electricity, water and gas said that all fees would rise slightly. They said that overall inflation had pushed up prices across all sectors. The price rises are not expected to be drastic, a 2% rise in electricity prices is expected, but they will still irritate ordinary Azerbaijanis who have been dealing with a general economic slowdown for the past 2- 1/2 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
ALMATY, NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty jailed four men for between eight and 10 years for the rape of woman in a case that was only investigated after the mother of the victim posted a teary, anguished video on the internet asking for help.
Few rape cases are prosecuted in Kazakhstan because the victims are afraid to speak out against their attackers and are also worried about the stigma of being raped.
In this case, the victim was attacked and raped near a police station in the town of Yesik, which has a population of about 40,000 people and is roughly 40km east of Almaty. She said that initially the police were not interested in her complaint, possibly because one of the attackers was the son of a local politician, and allowed the attackers to walk away free. It was only when her mother broadcast her video, touching a nerve with the public, that the authorities showed any interest.
After the verdict a lawyer for the rape victim, who can’t be named for legal reasons, said that the conviction of the four men for rape was an important milestone for Kazakhstan.
“The verdict is of course fair. It means a lot because all women of Kazakhstan were waiting for this verdict, all those who kept silent their whole life about rapes. For ages, centuries, this problem was concealed and finally there is a woman who has openly spoken about it,” lawyer Aiman Umarova told The Conway Bulletin.
“For the country it means a new milestone when the government paid attention to women’s rights, to this social problem, and towards abuse against women.”
While some were celebrating the case as a step towards equality there has been a backlash. The rape victim and her family have had to ask for police protection as they have been receiving death threats from friends and family of the attackers.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian wine company Badagoni said it will sell 5m bottles of wine to China in a landmark agreement with the Asian country’s distributor Wenzhou Bydoway. The company did not specify the timeframe of the contract, but the volume agreed represents around 12% of Georgia’s annual wine exports, which have grown significantly in the past two years. The deal was made possible through a free trade agreement signed with China in September.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rostselmash, a Russian manufacturer of agricultural equipment, said it plans to establish a plant in Uzbekistan. The Rostov-on-Don company plans to occupy the site that it operated during Soviet times in the township of Chirchiq, in the outskirts of Tashkent. Rostselmash had opened the Chirchiq factory and three other plants in Tashkent in the 1940s.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The OSCE’s election monitoring arm, ODHIR, started its short-term mission in Uzbekistan ahead of the Dec. 4 presidential election. ODHIR’s long-term mission has been in Uzbekistan since the start of November. This is its biggest ever mission to Uzbekistan, where ODHIR has never judged an election to be either free or fair. Islam Karimov died in September after ruling the country for 25 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledged to increase its investment plans in Kazakhstan to $1b in 2017. So far in 2016, the EBRD has invested around $900m. At a meeting in Shymkent in Southern Kazakhstan, EBRD country director Janet Heckman also pledged increased investment in the utility sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna failed to obtain a review of a US court case that deemed the fund liable for the misrepresentation of BTA Bank bonds sold abroad in 2010-2012. The US court said in February that the Kazakh fund had concealed information regarding dealings with BTA that led to the bank’s default in 2012. The decision was significant because it marked an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act which protects activities by sovereign wealth funds.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
TBILISI, NOV. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian government is considering selling a 25% stake in Georgian Oil and Gas Corporation (GOGC) on the London Stock Exchange next year, a move that would give foreign investors another chance to buy into Georgia.
GOGC is Georgia’s state-owned energy company, administering its oil and gas contracts and also refurbishing and building power stations to generate electricity. Selling a 25% stake GOGC is likely to generate high levels of investor interest.
Georgia’s finance minister Dmitry Kumsishvili said: “The corporation’s 25% stake will be placed on one of the exchanges abroad, in London or Shanghai.”
Georgia’s BGEO Group, which controls Bank of Georgia, and its subsidiary Georgian Healthcare Group are already listed in London.
GOGC controls the North-South pipeline used by Russia to export gas to Armenia and is building the 450km-long East-West pipeline network, that will link its southern border with Azerbaijan to the Black Sea port of Poti. It also owns a 51% stake in the $230m Gardabani power plant, one of the biggest in Georgia, which was opened last year.
Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR, which supplies gas to Georgia, has also said that it is interested in buying a 25% stake in GOGC, according to the Trend news agency.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
NOV. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said that the Tajik authorities had stripped six of its reporters of their accreditation after the news agency published a story criticising the promotion of President Emomali Rakhmon’s daughter to a senior foreign ministry position.
Mr Rakhmon has a reputation for promoting his friends and family to high positions in the Tajik government and some analysts have said that he is setting up his son, Rustam Emomali, to take over the presidency from him. Mr Rakhmon has changed the constitution to scrap minimum age limits for presidential candidates.
Earlier this year Rukhshona Rahmonova, his daughter, was made an MP and now she has been appointed the deputy head of a department within the foreign ministry.
RFE/RL said that the stripping of its journalists’ accreditation was an attack on the whole agency.
“We are outraged by this action by the Tajik government, which is a blatant attack on our ability to do our jobs as journalists,” it said in a statement on its website.
The media scene for journalists in Tajikistan has been worsening over the past few years. The government has jailed both dissenting journalists and opposition activists.
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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)
