SEPT. 3/4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Unidentified men launched a series of attacks on government buildings in Dushanbe, killing at least nine policemen, media reported. Media said the men were linked to Islamic extremism, although this has not been confirmed.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Up to 10 animal rights activists brawled with security guards at a dolphin aquarium in Batumi on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, media reported. The activists were staging a protest and had demanded that the dolphins be released into the Black Sea. Media reported that the police arrested and charged at least six men for breaking into the aquarium.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
ALMATY/Kazakhstan, AUG. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — FC Astana, the quasi Kazakh government football project, may have qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time but not everybody was celebrating.
Football fans in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital, noted FC Astana’s success in beating Apoel Nicosia 2-1 over two legs in a qualifying round for Europe’s top football competition, but only grudgingly.
Azimat, 27, was taking a lunch-break from his job selling French wine at a shop in central Almaty. It was one of those graceful late summer days in Almaty. Snow-capped mountains in the background glinted bright in the sun; tree-lined streets provided a natural, fresh canopy for pedestrians. The day had a laid-back — louche, even — feel about it.
“This is definitely Kazakhstan’s glory,” Azimat said of FC Astana’s unexpected victory. “But, they are celebrating in Astana and not down here.” He smiled, proudly. “We are Almaty.”
People in Almaty are used to Astana’s status as the loud, brash newcomer usurping their beloved city. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev has treated Astana as his pet project, building grandiose government ministries and replicas of some of Europe’s most famous monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe. He made it his capital in 1997, wary of Almaty’s reputation for dissent. Since then he has poured billions into constructing the city of his dreams and shifted business and government agencies north to Astana. The Central Bank will be the last major government agency to move to Astana from Almaty when it shifts its office at the end of 2016.
Much like the city, FC Astana is a new football team. It was established in 2009, wears the national colours and is sponsored by Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund. It has been created to succeed.
Almaty’s team Kairat was the football powerhouse in Kazakhstan but has been firmly superseded by FC Astana and its stars. A few hours after Azimat espoused on FC Astana’s success, Kairat was playing France’s Bordeaux in a qualifying match for Europe’s second tier UEFA Europa League. It won the match but still lost the two-leg tie. Once again, Almaty residents will have to look on as Astana carries the Kazakh flag, searching for more glory.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shares in Toronto- and London listed Tethys Petroleum, whose focus is on oil and gas production and exploration in Central Asia, fell significantly after rival Nostrum on Aug. 28 cut a third off the value of an earlier buyout offer.
Tethys shares in Toronto fell by 20% and in London by 29.3%. Tethys responded by saying that it would honour the exclusivity agreement with Nostrum and then look to other companies for potential buyers.
Nostrum said that it had cut its offer after a new due diligence project showed that the original offer had overvalued the company.
In mining, shares in London-listed KAZ Minerals lost 14.2% of their value between Aug. 28 and Sept. 4, wiping gains from August’s devaluation.
KAZ Minerals used to be called Kazakhmys and is focused on copper production.
The Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) of TBC Bank, which are traded in London, fell by around 8% over the week to $9.12, the lowest price to date for the bank.
TBC, which is the largest retail bank in Georgia and counts PM Irakli Garibashvili as a director, has been trading its GDRs in London since 2014.
The Georgian economy, like the rest of the region, has been dealing with the fallout from the slowdown in Russia’s economy. Georgia is also vulnerable to Greece, its second largest source of remittances. There was no particular news from TBC that would have pressures its GDRs.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)
AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov visited Kabul and signed a series of deals with his Afghan counterparts, highlighting just how important he views improved relations between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
The bilateral deals were not particularly ground-breaking — two leaders agreed to share financial data more readily as well as improve improve cooperation in the energy and tech sectors — but the trip itself was important.
Although he is beginning to travel more and more, Mr Berdymukhamedov is not a particularly keen traveller so a high- profile meeting with Afghan president Mohammad Ashraf Ghani in Kabul is eye-catching.
Mr Berdymukhamedov is worried about the northward march of the Taliban and stability in general in the country.
Earlier this year, reports surfaced which said that Turkmen soldiershadpositioned themselves inside Afghan territory after a series of attacks on their border posts by the Taliban.
Afghanistan is also now a partner in the so-called TAPI gas pipeline project which is planned to run from fields in the east of Turkmenistan to India.
Without stability in Afghanistan and a strong central government the project is likely to remain just a pipe dream.
Expect more Kabul-bound trips by Mr Berdymukhamedov.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised Kazakhstan’s commitment to free speech after it ordered the independent-minded ADAM magazine to be suspended for three months for failing to publish copies in both Russian and Kazakh. The authorities closed down its predecessor ADAM Bol in 2014.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of food in Azerbaijan fell by 0.3% in August compared to July, the state’s statistical service told media. The fall in prices highlights the turmoil that the drop in the value of the manat and the collapse in oil prices has created.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shelling along the de facto border around the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh killed at least one Armenian solider, media reported quoting Armenian sources. Sporadic fighting around Nagorno- Karabakh, which is controlled by Armenian-backed separatists, is fairly commonplace.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s GDP grew by 4.4% in H1 2015, media quoted PM Hovik Abrahamyan as saying. This is better than analysts had predicted. Mr Abrahamyan said an increase in agriculture exports had helped offset a drop in economic conditions triggered by the fall in the dram currency.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Korean Water Resource Corporation (K-Water) awarded Italian engineering group Salini Impregilo a contract worth $575m to build the Nenskra hydroelectric power plant (HPP) in the Svaneti region of northwest Georgia.
K-Water, in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and the Korean Exim Bank, are developing the 280MW project which will have an overall cost of around $1b.
Salini Impregilo has already worked in Georgia on various projects, including the construction of a new motorway.
“The work will have to be completed in 62 months from the signing of the contract,” Salini Impregilo said in a statement.
“The Project will be composed of a main dam, a weir on the Nakra river, a transfer tunnel, a headrace tunnel to the powerhouse and the actual open-air powerhouse with four vertical-axis Pelton turbines.”
The Nenskra HPP project has been talked of for a few years. The Chinese Sinohydro had been selected to develop a 210MW project in 2012, only to withdraw later. Both the cost and the capacity of the HPP have been increased since 2012.
Irakli Kovzanadze, CEO of Partnership Fund, which controls stakes in major Georgian infrastructure projects for the state, underlined the importance of the project for Georgia.
“This hydropower plant will be the largest one in Georgia since the country’s independence,” Georgian media quoted him as saying.
Georgia produces three-quarters of its electricity from hydroelectric plants, although it still imports more than it produces.
One of the key strategic aims of the Nenskra HPP is to help Georgia reduce its energy dependence on Russia, which supplies it with most of its gas.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
