JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov signed a decree to pardon over 1,300 prisoners on the eve of a religious holiday. Mr Berdymukhamedov regularly issues presidential amnesties to celebrate official holidays.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – China imported around 23% more Georgian wine in the first half of this year from last year, new figures showed, making it one of Georgia’s fifth most important market. Georgia’s agriculture minister, Otar Danelia, was in Beijing to meet his Chinese counterpart.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank approved a $305m loan to Uzbekistan to update and modernise its motorway network and a second loan of $105m to improve the irrigation network in the Bukhara region, media reported. Human rights groups have criticises the world Bank for the loans.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Korea’s Huawei has won a contract to fit out a 265km section of railway running across Turkmenistan from the border with Kazakhstan to Iran, media reported. Korean companies are winning a number of contracts in Turkmenistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The body of the final animal missing from Tbilisi Zoo after a flood swept into it in June has been found in central Tbilisi, media reported. Salima was an Ussuri tiger. Last year she gave birth to three cubs.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s Central Bank reported that foreign currency exchanges increased by more than 50% in the first six months of the year compared to the same period in 2014. In Feb., Azerbaijan devalued its manat currency by a third.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECRH) in Strasbourg ruled that Russia had broken the European Convention on Human Rights in 2006 and 2007 when it detained hundreds of Georgians in Moscow and deported them. At the time, analysts said the deportations were linked to a Russia-Georgia spy row. The ECRH ruling will likely raise Georgia-Russia tension.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Relations between the United States and Azerbaijan appeared to have sunk to a new low after Azerbaijani media accused US ambassador Robert Cekuta of inciting a revolution.
The US embassy published a rare statement refuting the allegations, saying that meetings with opposition groups and media were part of its ongoing mission to listen to all sides of Azerbaijan’s community.
“The Ambassador also continues meeting extensively with top figures in Azerbaijan’s government,” the US embassy statement said.
“The US Embassy is not plotting a coup in Azerbaijan. Nor is it instructing or financing any political party in the country.”
Relations have nose-dived in the past year over Azerbaijan’s crackdown on civil society. Azerbaijan has responded to criticism by accusing the US and Europe of mounting a smear campaign.
The US Peace Corps, a US- government funded organisation which sends teenagers and young adults abroad to live and teach English, has quit Azerbaijan, as has the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The US has also criticised Azerbaijan for jailing opponents of President Ilham Aliyev.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s oil and gas ministry accused Russia’s Gazprom of failing to pay for natural gas it has supplied it with this year, aggravating a bitter row between the two countries.
Gazprom declined to comment. “Since the beginning of 2015, Gazprom has not paid its debts to the state corporation Turkmengaz for the volumes of Turkmen gas it supplied,” the Turkmen government statement said on its website.
“Russian company Gazprom has become insolvent on its natural gas purchase-and-sale contracts due to the continued global economic crisis and economic sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia.”
Turkmenistan and Russia have publicly rowed before. In 2014, Gazprom slashed the amount of gas it imported from Turkmenistan to 11b cubic metres (bcm). In 2015, it planned to buy 4bcm. This is a huge drop from previous purchases. In 2008, Gazprom bought 40 bcm from Turkmenistan. And the row has also sucked in other sectors.
In 2010, Turkmenistan expelled Russian mobile phone operator MTS from the country. It later re-installed it.
The drop in Russian gas purchases has forced Turkmenistan to look elsewhere for clients. China has become its biggest client and it is trying to win contracts from the European Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s foreign currency reserves declined by 4.4% in the first half of 2015, data from the Central Bank showed. Kazakhstan, like other countries across the region, has been defending the value of its currency by spending its reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
