JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is paying former senior German politicians large salaries to whitewash its reputation in Europe, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported quoting emails it has seen from an Austria-based law firm. The magazine named former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former president Horst Koehler and former interior minister Otto Schily.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) -At least 19 people died after flash floods hit Tbilisi, smashing into houses, ripping up road and destroying city’s zoo
Torrential rain turned a small creek that runs through the city into a wild, uncontrollable river. It burst its banks and swept along recently paved and concreted areas into residential parts of Tbilisi.
Several animals escaped the flooded zoo, including lions, tigers, bears and panthers but dozens others died. A cornered tiger reportedly attacked and killed a man in a flooded warehouse on June 17. Police later shot dead the tiger.
The authorities ordered people to stay inside until they had re-captured all the animals. Video showed a hippo roaming through central Tbilisi before being hit with a tranquilliser dart and brought under control.
The carcasses of dead lions, bears and deer floated through flooded streets, past smashed cars caked with mud and houses missing walls.
This was one of the worst natural disaster to hit Tbilisi in living memory.
PM Irakli Garibashvili said around 200 people lost their homes and that the cost of repairing the city would be around 50m euro.
But the damage to Georgia’s prestige may be worse. People were quick to portion blame for the floods, many saying poor construction work had destroyed the river’s run-off area.
Nana Janashia, director of the Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN), also said the non-existence of an emergency plan was also a problem.
“This was absolutely predictable and is the result of high rain precipitation, human impact and poor infrastructures dating back to Soviet times,” she said.
Others blamed former president Mikheil Saakashvili who initiated the construction of the new highway. In a 2009 article, the magazine Liberali said the construction of the highway could lead to potential disastrous floods.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in west Kazakhstan handed the Karachaganak oil and gas project a fine of 7.3b tenge (roughly $40m) for excessive flaring, media reported quoting a court statement. Karachaganak’s shareholders are BG Group, Eni, Chevron, Lukoil and Kazmunaigas.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia launched military exercises involving 1,500 soldiers in South Ossetia, angering Georgia. In 2008, Russia and Georgia fought a war over the region. Russia defeated Georgia and S.Ossetia declared independence although this was only recognised by the Kremlin and a handful of other states.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia-France missile deal Georgia signed a deal with France to buy an air defence missile system, framed as a much needed modernisation. The deal has been in the making for several months. Finalising the details had been delayed because of a change of Georgian defence minister last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), travelled to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan as part of a short trip to the region. Mr Bach first travelled to Baku for the opening ceremony of the European Games and then to Tashkent, Dushanbe and Bishkek.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was one of a handful of international leaders to head to Azerbaijan for the opening ceremony of the European Games. In Baku, he held talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Turkmenistan wants to send gas to Europe via Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh carmakers doubled domestic production in May compared to April, according to the Association of the Kazakh Automobile Business, but overall sales are still lower this year.
Car production and demand are a decent weathermast for checking the health of economies. Kazakhstan, like the rest of the region, has been struggling to cope with the fallout from a decline in economic conditions, linked mainly to a fall in global oil prices.
This drop in car sales and production numbers.
Overall, car sales have slumped by around a third in Kazakhstan in the first quarter of the year compared to 2014 but there was a definite uptick in domestic production last month. Domestic manufacturers produced 2,611 new cars in May up from t 1,248 cars in April.
The car market is still suffering from slow sales in the first quarter of 2015, down 32% from the last quarter of 2014.
Car manufacturing has become increasingly important to Kazakhstan’s economy, employing hundreds of people. Most of the industry is based around Kostanai in the north of the country and Oskemen, or Ust-Kamenogorsk as it was called until recently, in the east.
In Kazakhstan, car sales hit 160,000 in 2013, up nearly 70% from 2012. There was a slight drop in 2014 and 2015 is shaping up to be an even bigger drop. This will likely be the first time that car sales have declined for two years in a row in Kazakhstan since 2008 and 2009, during the global economic crisis.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US-based Contour Global Hydro Cascade formally received a 25-year licence to produce electricity at the Vorotan hydropower plants from Armenia’s state regulator. Although a formality, the licence is significant as Vorotan produces around 15% of Armenia’s electricity.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon wrapped up a trip to Central Asia with a speech to university students in Ashgabat in which he warned that democracy and human rights in the region were being increasingly marginalised.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
