OCT. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Tajik authorities asked media to refrain from reporting on the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). According to officials, the IRPT had planned to overthrow the Tajik government before its leaders were arrested in September. They have said foreign media has been duped into painting them as victims of repression.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – As expected, the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party won parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, securing President Ilham Aliyev’s control over the legislative assembly.
Azerbaijan’s Central Election Committee said that Yeni Azerbaijan had won 69 seats in the 125-seat parliament, slightly lower than five years ago. Independent MPs, who are in reality loyal to Mr Aliyev, won most of the other seats, giving him near total control.
Mr Aliyev said that the result reflected the will of Azerbaijan’s people and gave him a mandate for change.
“The factors, hindering the development of the country, as well as corruption cases should be eliminated. There is a strong political will and public support for achieving it,” he told media after the election.
The West had criticised Azerbaijan for cracking down on civil liberties and in the run-up to the election its main vote monitoring watchdog, the OSCE’s ODHIR, pulled out of covering the election after a row with the Azerbaijani authorities over the number of monitors it was allowed.
Tension has grown this year between the West and Azerbaijan. After the election result the US said: “We continue to have concerns about the restrictive political environment in Azerbaijan and urge the Government of Azerbaijan to respect the freedoms of peaceful assembly, association, and independent voices including the media.”
Russia, by contrast, praised the election as free and fair. European vote monitors have never said an election in Azerbaijan was free or fair.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — US-based UOP signed a contract to provide technology and licensing for new units to be built at the Heydar Aliyev oil refinery near Baku. UOP is a subsidiary of Honeywell International. SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company, has been looking for partners to modernise the country’s most important refinery. Azerbaijan needs to produce more petrol to hit growing demand.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian Chamber of Commerce launched an investigation into what it has said is a major gap in the country’s healthcare coverage which leaves over 400,000 Georgians uninsured. The timing of the study is pertinent. In October, Georgia Healthcare Group, the largest healthcare provider in Georgia, said it wanted to raise $100m in an IPO in London to modernise two of its private hospitals in Tbilisi.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Corruption is still rife in Uzbekistan despite the introduction of the country’s first anti-corruption plan earlier this year and a so called anti-corruption coordination commission, the OECD said in a new report.
In its report, the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said that Uzbekistan needs to criminalise corruption and promote public sector honesty and integrity.
Corruption and bribery are considered deeply embedded in Uzbekistan. The OECD, an intergovernmental organisation, report is evidence that little has changed despite some headline policies.
In effect, the OECD, said that Uzbekistan’s new laws were window dressing.
In its exhaustive 116 page report, the OECD said that Uzbekistan needed to focus on a handful of key policies if it was committed to beating corruption.
These involved conducting anti- corruption surveys regularly and publishing the results; improving the independence and integrity of the law enforcement agencies; developing e- government tools.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian oil and gas company Lukoil completed the construction of two electric substations at a major gas field in Uzbekistan. Lukoil is the operating company at the Gissar gas field in the south of the country.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh Senate passed a bill that will regulate financing for NGOs, a move criticised by the West as cutting back on civil liberties. The new bill is similar to a law passed in Russia and limits NGOs’ access to funding from overseas.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s foreign currency reserves fell 3% in September to just over $7b, media reported, highlighting just how much cash the Central Bank has spent propping up the manat. Azerbaijan’s Central Bank has now spent half its currency reserves in the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament reappointed Temir Sariyev as the country’s PM, one month after an election won by President Almazbek Atamabayev’s Social Democrats. Mr Sariyev will head the coalition government. He has been PM since May 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Campaigning has started ahead of a referendum on Dec. 6 on the Armenian constitution. The referendum debate focuses on whether to increase the powers of Parliament and the PM over the President. Opposition groups say Pres. Serzh Sargsyan wants to give himself more power once he leaves the presidency in 2018.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
