DEC. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev flew to China for talks with Chinese president Xi Jingping to discuss developing the South Caucasus as a transport corridor. Azerbaijan has been boosting its status as a gateway between the east and west.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The London correspondent of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Khabar TV station and its 24.kz website, Bela Kudaibergenova, resigned saying: “I just can’t lie any more”.
On a Facebook post, Ms Kudaibergenova, who has been in London for six years, said that she decided to quit when she was ordered to spin a dowdy event organised by the Kazakh embassy as a great success which showed the love that the British people have for Kazakhstan.
“That was it. I felt that enough was enough, and I could not do it anymore,” Ms Kudaibergenova told RFE/RL in an interview.
Free speech activists have previously criticised Kazakhstan for crack- downs and for using state-run media to sugar coat reality.
After Ms Kudaibergenova’s resignation, twitter and social media lit up with messages of support.
The reaction of the official media in Kazakhstan, though, was less ecstatic. The Khabar news channel said that a planned move from London had triggered her resignation.
“We never lie,” said Arman Seitmamyut, head of of Khabar TV.
“I personally demand that all our journalists double check all their work and the accuracy of everything.”
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s public utilities company Barqi Tojik said it had stopped exporting electricity to Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan because of a seasonal shortage of supply, showing the weakness of Tajikistan’s power generating infrastructure.
The decision to halt exports also poses major questions over Tajikistan’s plans to become a regional power exporter. Only last week, foreign ministers from the countries involved in the CASA-1000 project signed a final agreement in Istanbul which should power the project forward.
The CASA-1000 project will link Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan, which is short in power, via Afghanistan.
The export cut by Barqi Tojik is a routine measure to satisfy domestic demand during the peak winter season but the company said hydro-power plants suffered from lower- than-normal production this year.
“Water levels are today roughly 10% lower than last year,” said Barqi Tojik in a statement on Dec. 8.
For CASA-1000 to be a success, Tajikistan needs to build more hydropower capacity.
Shutting off power supplies to Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan during the winter months highlights this issue.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan appeared to bow to international pressure and release a frail- looking Leyla Yunus, one of the country’s most high-profile human rights activists, from prison where she had been serving an 8-1⁄2 year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.
She will re-join her husband, Arif who was sent to prison at the same time but was released earlier on health grounds, in their Baku home.
The West has accused the authorities in Baku of cracking-down on dissents over the past few years.
Human rights activists welcomed the release of Leyla Yunus, although she is not allowed to leave Baku and her fraud and tax evasion conviction still stands.
They also said, though, that other so-called political prisoners needed to be released. This includes journalist Khadija Ismayilova who was sent to prison earlier this year.
Ismayilova was a relatively well- known RFE/RL journalist in Azerbaijan who had reported on top level corruption in Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s energy minister Kakha Kaladze met with Alexei Miller, the chairman of Russia’s Gazprom, in Luxembourg to discuss increasing imports of Russian gas. No deal has been signed although even the talks have stirred controversy in Georgia where memories of the 2008 war against Russia are still very fresh.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish producerCoca Cola Icecek will open its second plant in Kazakhstan in the first half of 2016, the chairman of the government agency KAZNEX INVESTBorisbi Zhangurazov told media.Coca Cola Icecek will operate the plant, located in Astana, which cost around $70m to build. Kazakhstan is the largest market in Central Asia for Coca Cola Icecek.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC.11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) are picking up again in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. After a difficult year hooked around the fall in the rouble and the drop in oil prices, investors have appeared to regain confidence in the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Or at least they have decided to just get on with it and deal with the economic downturn.
At least this is what the numbers show.
In Armenia FDI, measured by Central Banks as inflow minus outflow, reached $260m in the first 9 months of the year, a 17% increase compared to the same period last year.
In Georgia, although down 17% compared to the first three quarters of 2014, FDI grew progressively throughout the year, to reach just above $1b at the end of September.
Kyrgyzstan, which saw a surge of FDI in the first half of the year, might be on track to keep the trend going due to renewed confidence in the country’s extractive sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko flew into Ashgabat for talks with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berymukhamedov on how to develop bilateral relations next year. Belarusian companies are involved in mining and fertiliser production in Turkmenistan. Mr Lukashenko was returning from Vietnam.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Seemingly determined to be the bearer of positive news, Kazakh minister of economy Yerbolat Dossayev said construction on expanding the Tengiz oil project would start next April and that the Kashagan oil field would finally begin production in December 2016.
These dates confirm earlier plans to speed up the much-delayed Kashagan oil field in the Caspian Sea and expand the Chevron-led Tengiz oil- field sooner rather than later.
But some of the numbers are lower than the government had hoped for.
Deputy energy minister Magzum Mirzagaliyev said the Kashagan oil- field will reach an output of 13m tonnes/year by 2020, the equivalent of 250,000 barrels of oil/day. In June, NCOC ex-director Stephane de Mahieu said Kashagan would reach 370,000 barrels/day by the end of 2017. The NCOC consortium includes Eni, Kazmunaigas, Shell, ExxonMobil, Total, CNPC and Inpex.
Tengizchevroil – which includes Chevron, ExxonMobil, Kazmunaigas and LukArco – delayed their expansion plan to Tengiz this year because of a drop in oil prices. It has not commented on an April expansion date.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan once again formally complained to the OSCE, Europe’s security and democracy watchdog, about plans by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to build new dams on the upstream river system
The complaint is a reminder of Uzbekistan’s opposition to hydro- power development in Central Asia’s upstream water system.
The Tajik and Kyrgyz governments see building new dams and hydro- power systems as essential for their countries’ development, and specific to meeting new power demands from Pakistan who they will serve through the CASA-1000 project. Uzbekistan sees the hydro- power systems as a threat to its cotton industry and agriculture.
CASA-1000 is the $1b World Bank- backed project for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to generate electricity to export to Pakistan, via Afghanistan. This project hinges on a series of new dams being built in Tajikistan, including the Rogun Dam on the Vakhsh River, part of the wider Amu Darya system.
Relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have become so strained in the past over the issue that at times it has threatened to destabilise the region.
With the final deal on CASA-1000 signed in Istanbul earlier this month, relations between Uzbekistan and its upstream neighbours are likely to become more strained, as this latest complaint appears to forewarn.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
