JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kashagan, Kazakhstan’s trouble- some Caspian Sea oil field, will start pumping oil by mid-2016 and hit an output of 370,000 barrels per day by the end of 2017, media reported quoting an interview with Stephane de Mahieu, managing- director of the consortium developing the field.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s first communications satellite, launched in April, has started operations, the Turkmen government said. The satellite will improve broadcasts over the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan have imposed new restrictions on foreign travel, media reported. From now on, people with debts will be barred from leaving the country. Uzbekistan is considered to be one of the most repressive countries in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s foreign exchange reserves fell by $37.4m in May to $2.4b, the Central Bank said. Georgia has sold foreign currency reserves to prop up its lari currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s foreign currency reserves inched up in May for the first time in a year, according to Central Bank data, suggesting that pressure on its manat currency had eased off. Like other countries in the region, Azerbaijan has been fighting to maintain the strength of its currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream coalition said it won’t scrap the MPs elected via a first- past-the-post system for the 2016 parliamentary election. Last month the Constitutional Court said it backed reforming the voting system to make it fairer.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government presented new rules for workers which reduces their rights and forces unions to re-register with a government institution, a move which could damage relations between labour groups and companies.
Tamara Duysenova, the minister for health and social development, presented the bill at the National Congress of Trade Unions in Astana.
“The new provisions are in line with the spirit of the Law On Trade Unions approved last year,” she said.
The Unions disagree. Lyudmila Ekzarkhova, an official at the Confederation of Free Trade Unions, said: “These measures would put independent unions under the thumb of a government- appointed body.”
Opposition groups have criticised the measures which free employers from paying overtime work and cut benefits for injured workers.
The new law will also force independent trade unions to re-register under the state- controlled Federation of Trade Unions. Strikes called by unregistered trade unions will be illegal.
Relations between big companies and workers in Kazakhstan are already delicate.
Ever since oil workers went on strike in the town of Zhanaozen in the west of the country in 2011, a strike which triggered a riot and then a street battle with police that killed at least 15 people, workers’ rights in Kazakhstan have been strained.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia would be prepared to send a rapid reaction force to defend Tajikistan’s southern border from Taliban incursions, Russian media quoted General Nikolai Bordyuzha as saying. General Bordyuzha is head of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), an FSU intergovernmental military group.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After 20 years of negotiations, Kazakhstan has completed talks with the World Trade Organisation and should join the group by the end of the year. The WTO said that although there had been issues around Kazakhstan’s bilateral agreements and its membership of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union, a deal had been struck.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Tajikistan lifted a ban on Facebook and YouTube imposed after a police chief defected to the radical group IS in Syria last month, the AFP news agency reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
