Category Archives: Uncategorised

Tajikistan wants medics evacuted from Yemen

MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – With a conflict in Yemen between a pro-government alliance that includes various Arab states and Iran-backed rebels worsening, Tajikistan has asked Russia for help repatriating 44 Tajik doctors.

Abdulfaizov Atoyev, a Tajik foreign ministry spokeman, said: “The country is taking all relevant measures to evacuate our citizens.”

Media has reported that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE are preparing for a ground invasion of Yemen.

Doctors and nurses from Tajikistan often travel abroad to work in hospitals and clinics. Remittances from these migrant workers keep the Tajik economy afloat. Russian companies like Zdraveksport and Tekhnoeksport specialise in sending Tajik doctors to Gulf countries. In Yemen, they mostly work for the Red Cross/Red Crescent.

Last October a Tajik nurse was kidnapped in Yemen.

Medical studies represent a climbable social ladder in Tajikistan, as well as providing a route to work abroad. Moving to another country has been a lucrative option for Tajik medics who also want to support their family at home.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Georgia CBank keeps interest rates steady

MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Central Bank kept its key interest rate at 4.5%, confounding expectations of another rate rise to counter a fall in the value of its lari currency. The Central Bank said the current inflation rate did not merit a rate rise although it also said that a gradual devaluation would probably push prices up.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Azerbaijani court begins trial of 6 men for IS links

MARCH 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Azerbaijan began the trial of six men accused of fighting with the extremist IS group in Syria, media reported. The men are part of a group of 26 people arrested last year.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Azerbaijani banks are burdening customers –IWPR

MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Banks in Azerbaijan are passing on costs triggered by the devaluation of the manat to their clients, the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) said.

The most vulnerable are people who took out loans in foreign currencies before the devaluation.

IWPR quoted local media which attributed two suicides to the devaluation and the sudden increased cost of repaying debt.

It also suggested that the commercial banks have been breaking the law by making people pay back loans at the new, weaker, exchange rate.

The IWPR quoted a Supreme Court judge saying that banks should continue to charge consumers the rate they took the loan out originally.

Experts have warned Azerbaijan that it needs to reduce consumers’ debt burdens to ensure its economic security.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Georgia plans to build windfarm

MARCH 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia plans to build a small windfarm between Tbilisi and Gori to the northwest, media reported. This is the first wind farm in the country and is part-funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Uzbekistan to build pipeline to China

MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan will start building a fourth gas pipeline to China at the end of this year, Interfax news agency quoted an official from the state energy company Uzbekneftegaz as saying. The pipeline is expected to be 260km long and cost around $800m.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Asylum seekers from Azerbaijan rise

MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The number of asylum seekers from Azerbaijan to Europe is increasing, the United Nations said in a report on global trends.
The latest data from the UN showed that in the first quarter of 2014 641 people from Azerbaijan claimed asylum in Europe, compared to 572 people in the first quarter of 2013.

This is still below the numbers from Azerbaijan’s South Caucasus neighbours — Georgia and Armenia.

Independent observers in Azerbaijan have said that the main driver of asylum seekers — rather than the larger dynamic of economic migrants — is a crackdown by the Azerbaijani authorities on civic activists. Importantly, this has recently also included NGO leaders and journalists who feel persecuted by the authorities as well as opposition figures.

Alovsat Aliyev, head of the Azerbaijan Migration Centre, who has also left Baku to live in Berlin because he worried about persecution said the figures also represented a brain-drain for Azerbaijan.

“Not only do those who are persecuted leave the country, but these are also people who have high capacity of intelligence and don’t want to be part of corrupted system,” he told media.

Azerbaijani asylum seekers mostly use Georgia as a transition country, as it is considered safer than Iran, Turkey and Russia.

The United States the European Union have both called on Azerbaijan to stop its alleged crackdown on civil groups. Several US NGOs and the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have quit Azerbaijan.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Russia bans some Kazakh meat

APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has banned sales of some pork products from Russia for health reasons, media reported, although some analysts said the real reason for the ban was worsening trade relations. Kazakh producers have complained of a flood of Russian goods. The devaluation of the Russian rouble has made Russian goods very cheap in Kazakhstan.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Azerbaijan expells HRW activists

APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani officials expelled a Georgian activist working for the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), media reported. The officials didn’t give any reason for expelling Georgi Gogia who had travelled to Baku to attend the trial of two activists. Relations between Azerbaijan and the West have worsened recently.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Russia is a threat, says Georgian president

MARCH 312015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In his annual address to the nation, Georgian President Georgy Margvelashvili said Russia’s annexation of Crimea and alleged support for rebels in eastern Ukraine threatened to destabilise the region. These were some of the strongest comments yet from Georgia on Ukraine.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)