JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The suspects behind the attack on the Chinese embassy in Bishkek last year are in hiding in Istanbul, Kyrgyz media quoted Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to Turkey as saying. A car bomb killed two people working at the embassy on Aug. 30 2016. The authorities have blamed Uighurs from China’s western Xinjiang Province. Turkey has not commented.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan wants to attract foreign investors to help develop its North Goturdepe oil field in the Caspian Sea, media reported. The field was discovered in 2010 and has been developed by Turkmenistan. It currently produces around 68,000 barrels/day. It wants to double production.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
BISHKEK, JAN. 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s trade with other members of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) fell 18.6% in the first 10 months of 2016, the Russian news website gazeta.ru quoted an unnamed source at the Kyrgyz statistics committee as saying.
This data, if confirmed when the official statistics are released, highlights Kyrgyz officials’ concerns that joining the EEU has had a negative impact on its trade. They have said that the EEU favours the larger countries and has hampered Kyrgyzstan’s trade with China.
“In the first 10 months of 2016, trade turnover, the import-exports of Kyrgyzstan, with the EEU member states comprised of $1.575b,” the unnamed source said. “Compared to the same period in 2015, this figure was 81.4%, in other words it was a drop of 18.6%.”
The data also goes against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence that Kyrgyzstan’s trade turnover has increased since it joined the EEU.
Last month in a very public show of his frustration with the EEU, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev delayed signing a key customs agreement between the five member states at a ceremony in St Petersburg.
Kyrgyzstan joined the EEU in August 2015 but its businessmen and MPs have complained of excessive bureaucracy and barriers to trading with China that the EEU has imposed.
Many analysts said Kyrgyzstan had been coerced into joining the EEU.
The other EEU member states are Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> I read on page 6 that Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon has made his son the mayor of Dushanbe. Why has he done this?
>> Essentially it looks as if this is a continuation of a process that has been happening for some time. Rakhmon, who has been in power since the mid 1990s, is thinking about succession and this means handing over power to his son, Rustam Emomali. Last year, Pres. Rakhmon forced through changes to Tajikistan’s constitution that should make it easier for his son to take over. A pliant parliament voted to approve changes which mean that both Rakhmon and his son will be eligible to run in a 2020 election.
>> How is the rule on presidential candidates being over 35-years-old important?
>> Put simply, it looks as if Rakhmon is hedging his bets with these constitutional changes. Rakhmon will be 68-years-old when the next presidential election comes along in Tajikistan, probably in November 2020. He may not be in the best health then and may want to give up governing. If he does, dropping the 35- year-old minimum age rule allows his son, Rustam, to stand. Rustam will be 32-years-old in Nov. 2020.
>> And the mayoral position in Dushanbe?
>> This is an important position in Tajikistan. All the country’s wealth is situated in Dushanbe. Apartment prices on Rudaki, the main avenue running through Dushanbe, are among the most expensive in the region. Rustam Emomali will also be given a sizeable budget to manage, with all its challenges and pitfalls. This is like- for-like training for the top job.
>> What has Rustam Emomali done before this?
>> He’s had a few serious jobs in Tajikistan. He has previously been the head of the country’s customs service and its main anti-corruption agency, the Agency for State Financial Control. Rustam Emomali also has an international profile as he is head of Tajikistan’s football federation. A keen footballer, he used to play centre forward for one of Tajikistan’ s top football clubs.
>> How have international organisations reacted to the promotion of Rustam Emomali as mayor of Dushanbe?
>> Predictably, many of the Western groups are frustrated. They have said for a while that Pres. Rakhmon is acting in an increasingly autocratic manner. Promoting his son to such an important position, to them, confirms this. It also builds on the feeling that Rakhmon is acting as a control freak. Tajikistan’s opposition have been hounded and imprisoned, news websites and social media are often shut down for spurious reasons. This said, security-conscious regional governments are far less likely to be bothered about the grooming of Rakhmon’s son to take over from him.
>> So, what next?
>> Keep a close eye on Rakhmon’s health and also how Rustam Emomali is perceived to perform as mayor of Dushanbe. It’s a position where, if he slips up, he can make enemies. And, the nearer the 2020 election get, the more attention you need to pay to just how Pres. Rakhmon and his son, Rustam, are positioning themselves. The opposition has been hollowed out so whatever they decide between themselves will fly.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A dossier produced by a former British spy detailing how Russian president Vladimir Putin had developed links with incoming US president Donald Trump has shocked the Washington political establishment.
The report, published online by the Buzzfeed news website on Jan. 10, also detailed how Russia has gathered enough evidence of Trump’s alleged bribery and sexual escapades that it was now able to blackmail him.
Trump has called the dossier a pack of lies but what is undeniable is the assertion in the dossier that Araz Agalarov, an ethnic Azerbaijani billionaire with strong links to both the Kremlin and to Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev, plays a key link role with Trump.
One memo sent by the British spy to his Washington client quoted sources in St Petersburg saying that Trump had visited the city, taken part in sex parties and paid bribes for real estate deals. The memo didn’t offer much in the way of direct evidence to corroborate these allegations, and it has to be repeated that Trump has denied everything.
On Agalarov, though, it did offer this aside: “The two St Petersburg figures cited believe an Azeri business figure Araz Agalarov (with offices in Baku and London) had been closely involved with Trump in Russia and would know most of the details of what the Republican candidate had got up to there.”
Agalarov has also been credited with bringing Trump’s Miss Universe contest to Moscow in 2013 and agreeing to build a Trump Tower.
In short, Agalarov has emerged as a key figure in the Trump-Putin story. Worth an estimated $1.3b, Agalarov splits his time between Moscow, London and Baku. His main business interest is the Russia-based Crocus, which started organising and hosting exhibitions in post-Soviet Moscow, before moving into real estate and owning shopping malls.
In many ways, the 62-year-old Agalarov is a good foil for Trump in the former Soviet Union. He can match Trump on bravado and business interests but cuts a more sophisticated figure.
He is friends with Putin and is also close to Azerbaijan’s president Aliyev. His musician son, Emin, was married to Aliyev’s daughter Leyla until their divorce in 2015. Agalarov and Aliyev, though, share two twin grandsons through the marriage.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank said that it will scrap a 4% exchange rate corridor to allow the manat to float freely. The exchange rate corridor had been designed to keep the manat stable but it has come under increased pressure because of the drop in oil prices and economic problems in Russia. The manat is now trading at around 1.82/$1. In June it traded at 1.49/$1.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will receive an order of four Mi-35M combat helicopters from Russia in 2018, Russian Helicopters said. Kazakhstan has been looking to modernise and improve its military. It has signed various deals with Russia to boost military relations. The Mi-35M is Russia’s most sophisticated combat helicopter and is designed to attack land-based vehicles.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
TBILISI, JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three months after a humiliating parliamentary election defeat the once mighty United National Movement party (UNM) appears to be in its final death throes.
Putting an end to months of speculation, 21 MPs from the UNM said that they were breaking away to form a new party.
Gigi Ugulava, the MPs’ unofficial leader, said the UNM was too heavily tarnished by its links to former president Mikheil Saakahsvili.
“One person is responsible for dismantling the party, the person, who established the party,” media quoted him as saying, referring to Mr Saakashvili.
Mr Ugulava is an ex-mayor of Tbilisi. He was only released from prison a week earlier, where he had been serving a sentence for bribe-taking.
At a parliamentary election, UNM won just 27 seats of 150 seats, down from 65 seats in the 2012 election. Its great rivals, the Georgian Dream won 115 seats, up from 85.
Mr Saakashvili, Georgian president from 2004 until 2013 who counted George W. Bush as a friend, has been living in exile since leaving office in 2013. He had been hoping that a UNM victory at the election would allow him to return to Georgia.
He responded to the breakup of the party from his base in Ukraine in his usual bombastic fashion.
“Everyone saw the amount of defectors today and everyone will see the strength and the amount of the United National Movement at its January 20 congress,” he said on Facebook.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bigeldy Gabdullin, a Kazakh newspaper editor, pleaded guilty to trying to extort payments from government officials by threatening to publish negative articles about them. He was arrested in November and his trial is due to begin on Jan. 17. In the early 2000s, Mr Gabdullin had been a critic of the government but since the mid-2000s he has edited the pro-government Central Asia Monitor newspaper.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Just over 6.3m people visited Georgia in 2016, the country’s statistics service said, an increase of 7.6% from 2015. The data doesn’t differentiate between tourists and business visitors. The largest number of visitors were from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey and Russia. EU citizens made 263,000 trips, up from 241,000. A 45 day visa-free regime for Iranians also boosted numbers to 148,000 visits up from 25,000 visits in 2015.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
