MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Underlining his credentials as a far more outward looking leader than his predecessor, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said he would travel to Japan for a UN conference on disaster reduction. He’ll likely make time to meet with Japanese officials to improve relations too.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Bulletin) – The price of staple foods in Georgia is rising, media reported. Interpressnews.ge said cooking oil, buckwheat, sugar, salt and other goods have all increased in price because of the devaluation of the Georgian lari. Economists have been warning that weakening economic conditions could trigger inflation.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 5 2015 (The Bulletin) – Russia’s defence minister, Anatoly Anatonov, said IS groups in Afghanistan posed a threat to Tajikistan. Russia has been a consistent siren on Tajikistan, warning of the threat to its stability once NATO withdraws from Afghanistan. Russia maintains a garrison in Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 5 2015 (The Bulletin) – Two senior officials in the Tbilisi government, Reno Chakhava, head of the mayor’s office, and his deputy, Mariam Shelegia, have resigned over continued allegations of corruption and bribe-taking, media reported. The resignations throw the most powerful civic council in Georgia into disarray.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 5 2015 (The Bulletin) – After years of pirating software, Georgia’s government signed a deal with Microsoft to officially licence its operating system and other products, signalling its desire to promote its IT sector.
According to a 2013 study by the Business Software Alliance, a US-based industry lobby group, Georgia had the highest global software piracy rate. Around 90% of all the software installed in the country was unlicensed, including the government’s software.
Giga Paitchadze, IT expert and well known blogger, said this was a step towards professionalising Georgia’s image.
“Using licensed software on a state level will have a spill over effect on Georgian society, it will be a soft recommendation to respect other people’s work,” he said. “Just as our own intellectual property, patents, and products, need to be protected around the world as well.”
The license agreement is expected to have a positive effect on the Georgian IT sector. In the past few years, IT has been a major focus point of both the current and the previous government to be more competitive globally.
The government has estimated that the deal with Microsoft will cost around $8m to buy all state agencies with the latest versions of Microsoft’s operating systems.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Inmates in a prison in western Georgia have started a hunger strike over the postponement of their trials, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting one of the inmate’s lawyers. Western lobby groups have criticised Georgia previously for its harsh prison system and legal system.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 6 2015 (The Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR plans to issue a Eurobond by the end of March, the company’s CEO Rovnag Abdullayev said. Mr Abdullayev said SOCAR was launching the Eurobond because of the slide in oil prices over the past six months or so which have hit the company’s profits.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Bulletin) – The highest court in France rejected an appeal by lawyers of former Kazakh opposition figure Mukhtar Ablyazov against his extradition to either Ukraine or Russia . This decision paves the way for a governmental decree to extradite Ablyazov who is wanted by Kazakhstan on various charges.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Religious leaders in Kyrgyzstan issued a statement saying that it was not un-Islamic to vaccinate children against the measles virus, the Eurasianet website reported. This is important because health experts have blamed fears vaccinations were anti-Islamic for a surge in measles in Kyrgyzstan
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 10 2015 (The Bulletin) – Remittances to Uzbekistan from Russia dropped by 10% in 2014, media reported quoting a survey by the Russian analytical agency TMT and the CONTACT money transfer system.
While these figures are not official, they do add credence to the picture of tumbling economies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus because of a faltering Russian economy.
Importantly, reports said that analysts expected remittances from Russia to fall by around 25% this year. This will affect most Central Asian and South Caucasus countries, especially Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan which rely heavily on the flow of cash from Russia.
Proportionally, remittances make up a smaller proportion of the national income in Uzbekistan. In practice, though, it is a vital economic lifeline for many ordinary people.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
