Category Archives: Uncategorised

Netherlands extradites ex-Georgian spy

MARCH 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Giorgi Dgebuadze, a former high- ranking Georgian intelligence agent, was extradited to Georgia from the Netherlands. Mr Dgebuadze, who had served in the Constitutional Security Council, is wanted for charges related to the murder of three people in 2006. Dgebuadze had fled Georgia after the 2012 elections, triggering an Interpol manhunt. The Dutch police arrested Dgebuadze in 2014. The EU and the US have warned Georgia not to politicise its prosecution service.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Smuggling ring busts targeting Georgian oil

MARCH 23 2016, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian authorities broke up an oil smuggling operation near the village of Ruisi in central Georgia, highlighting the lack of security for infrastructures across the South Caucasus.

Smugglers were siphoning off crude oil from the Baku-Supsa oil pipeline, a BP-operated 800km-long pipeline that transports oil from Azerbaijan to the Georgian Black Sea terminal of Supsa.

Smugglers had installed a parallel pipeline that branched off the main trunk and fed trucks.

Major infrastructure projects in the South Caucasus often appear fragile and vulnerable. In November, a fire at a data centre shut down the internet in Azerbaijan.

In 2011, an elderly woman damaged a major fibre- optic cable while digging for copper in a rural Georgian village, cutting internet access in Armenia.

Last year, too, rebels from the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has proclaimed independence, grabbed control of a section of the Baku-Supsa pipeline.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Moody downgrades Armenia’s bonds

MARCH 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – International ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Armenia’s government bonds to B1 from Ba3, as the economic crisis continues to bite. Moody’s said Armenia continues to be vulnerable to external factors, such as “declining remittances from Russia that have not yet bottomed out,” the agency said in a press statement. Moody’s also said the downgrade is linked to the worsening debt/GDP ratio.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Kazakh Kashagan field to reach commercial production next year

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Halyk Bank effectively poured cold water over Kazakh officials’ forecasts that the giant Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea would meet commercial production of 75,000 barrels/day this year. Instead, Halyk Bank said that Kashagan would be operating effectively only by the end of 2017. Kashagan is vital for Kazakh oil output.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Editorial: Kazakh Pres. daughter’s moves

MARCH 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Observers expected one major outcome from Kazakhstan’s parliamentary election. Dariga Nazarbayeva’s nomination as an MP and her ascendency to be parliament’s Speaker, an important constitutional role and a stepping stone to higher office. But it didn’t come through.

Has she fallen out with her father, the 75-year-old Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev? Her son, Nurali Aliyev, resigned as deputy mayor of Astana earlier this month. Coincidences are rare in Kazakh politics.

Is she adopting a more low-key approach? This could be one way of dodging future tough austerity policies that the government will inevitably adopt to survive a worsening economic crisis.

Whatever the greater game plan is, one thing is for sure. Kazakhstan’s succession issue will once again dominate Kazakh politics.

ENDS

(Editorial from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Turkmenistan boosts CNG

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmenbashi refinery complex plans to produce 340,000 tonnes of compressed natural gas (CNG) this year, a 13% increase compared to 2015. The majority of the production is booked for exports to Georgia, Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turkmenistan also uses CNG domestically as fuel.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Children in Armenia stunted, UN WFP reports

MARCH 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint report from the UN’s World Food Programme and Armenia’s Statistics Committee said that around 19% of Armenian children under the age of five are stunted, a consequence of widespread malnourishment in the country. The report also noted that around 15% of the surveyed pool is overweight. This is commonly known as a “double malnutrition burden” which can become a public health concern if it spreads across the population. The report concluded that the Armenian government needs to take action to invert this negative trend.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Uzbekistan Airways starts flights to Tokyo

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned airline Uzbekistan Airways said it started a new weekly service between Tashkent and Tokyo Narita. The company also said the frequency will double to two flights per week from the end of March. Relations between Uzbekistan and Japan have been improving and Japanese businesses are investing heavily in Uzbekistan’s energy and mining sectors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Azerbaijan’s ACG oil output falls

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – BP said it expects flat oil output this year from its Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea. Last year, ACG produced 31.3m tonnes of oil, slightly down from 31.5m tonnes in 2014. BP also said it plans two rounds of maintenance later this year. ACG is the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s oil production. Its output has been falling.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Armenia reforms stock exchange

MARCH 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Armenian government wants to reform its stock exchange to include currencies and other forms of financial trade. In an interview with Reuters, the director of NASDAQ OMX, Konstantin Saroyan, said: “We are concerned that there are no currency operations on the stock exchange and we are trying to change our business model.” Mr Saroyan also said demand for US dollars has declined due to the economic downturn.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)