JAN. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP said it had cut 255 jobs from its operations in Azerbaijan as a result of the sharp drop in oil prices over the past six months. The 255 jobs represents 8% of its total workforce in Azerbaijan. The redundancies highlighted the impact of the oil price drop on the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
>>The US says Azerbaijan has made the issue political>>
JAN. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Azerbaijani government cancelled a property agreement with the US on construction of a new embassy building in Baku because of criticism of its election in 2013, a US State Department report released this month said.
Relations between Azerbaijan and the US have nose-dived recently. Last month, Azerbaijani police raided the office of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which is funded by the US government.
The State Department’s report adds more evidence that relations between the two countries has worsened.
“The mission’s top management priority is the construction of a new embassy building to replace the overcrowded and physically vulnerable 100-year-old chancery and a separate commercial annex one mile away,” the US State department report wrote.
“The Azerbaijani Government has frustrated at least seven US site acquisition efforts over the past decade. Most recently, the government cancelled a signed property agreement after the United States criticised the 2013 election.”
Azerbaijan has pressured human rights activists and independent media over the past few years, attracting heavy criticism from the US and Europe.
Azerbaijani political analyst Zardusht Alizade agreed the Azerbaijani authorities were using the row over the building of a new US embassy in Baku to frustrate the US.
“The Azerbaijani government does not want American embassy to extend here and to hire more people,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan extended the pre-trial detention of journalist Khadija Ismayilova, prompting criticism from Europe’s democracy watchdog, the OSCE. Ms Ismayilova is a critic of the government. She is accused of coaxing another journalist into suicide.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police detained several journalists as they left their homes to travel to an unauthorised protest against the closure of the Adam Bol news magazine, media reported quoting associates of the journalists. The UN also said that the freedom to protest in Kazakhstan has worsened recently.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-based energy company Dragon Oil said it would reduce its capital expenditure in Turkmenistan by 26% this year because of the decrease in oil global price, media reported. Dragon Oil’s slashing of its capital expenditure budget in Turkmenistan highlights the pressures that energy-focused economies are under.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
>>Kyrgyzstan has not paid membership fees for two years>>
JAN. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United Nations has suspended Kyrgyzstan right to vote at meetings because it has not paid its membership fees for two years.
Also included on the list of nonpayers, published on January 15, were Grenada, the Marshall Islands, Rwanda, Macedonia, Tonga, Vanuatu and Yemen. An updated note a few days later said that Rwanda and Yemen had been re-instated as voting members after their bills had been paid off.
The UN’s rules state that if a country is two years behind its membership payment, it loses its voting rights.
The actual amount that Kyrgyzstan owed the UN was small, just $6,731, but that’s not really the point. For Kyrgyzstan, the non-payment of its membership fees to the UN is an embarrassment, whether or not the amount is large or small and whether it has been missed through a clerical error or not.
If its wants to be taken seriously as a place for foreign investment and engagement, Kyrgyzstan simply can’t afford to be highlighted on this list of countries in arrears. It needs to get the basics right.
For Kyrgyzstan, the embarrassment is even more acute as only a few of years ago it was applying to take on one of the rotating chairs of the UN Security Council.
In 2011, Kyrgyzstan didn’t win enough support to take on the Arab-Asia position at the UN Security Council. Now it’s lost all voting rights altogether, at least temporarily, because of an unpaid bill of $6,731.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Building work in Armenia fell by 4.3% last year compared to 2013, data released by the national statistics agency showed. The construction sector is an important part of the Armenian economy and its decline highlights the problems faced by business as it deals with the fallout from Russia’s economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to boost exports, lawmakers in Armenia have drafted a bill to cut export profit tax to 2% from 20% for large exporters. The government says the tax cut will create jobs. Its opponents say that the tax cut will dent competition and simply help large companies retain their dominant market positions.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 28 2015, DUISI/Georgia (The Conway Bulletin) —- The Pankisi Gorge lies in Georgia in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains. It has gained some infamy over the past decade as a redoubt for radical Islamists fighting Russia over the borther in Chechnya and Dagestan and also as the birthplace of Omar al-Shishani, also known as Omar the Chechen, who is a senior commander within the IS radical group.
Here the Muslim Kists, Georgia’s Chechens, represent a cultural oddity and a possible danger in a country already ridden by ethnic divisions and separatist movements.
Makvala Margoshvili sat in the shade of an arbour in her blooming garden. She slowly sipped her dark tea. This is her homeland. Makvala is the head of the Kist folk music ensemble Aznach, which means voice in English. Nazy, Makvala’s English-speaking niece, summed up the problems.
“For a Chechen is hard to be a Chechen without instilling fear in the others,” she said.
Within a wider Russophobic post-Soviet perspective, Georgia has always had a favourable attitude towards Chechen separatism in Russia. During two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s, a stream of refugees and fighters entered the country through its porous border with Russia’s North Caucasus bringing along so-called Arab friends and fundamentalist ideas.
Despite the relative harmony in the valley, the Pansiki Gorge’s reputation for rough and tumble remains. Poverty and segregation are a dangerous mix leading to radicalisation but in the Pansiki Gorge there has been little investment by the central government.
There is plenty of resentment directed towards the central government. Nazy said that people living in the Pansiki Gorge often felt marginalised.
“Even harder, however, is for the others to look at us for what we really are beyond the stereotypes of our troubled history,” she said.
>>By Gianluca Pardelli
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
>>Regional links increasingly important>>
JAN. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Afghan president Ashraf Ghani flew to Ashgabat for a two-day visit, an important trip focused on developing economic and transport links.
Afghanistan and Turkmenistan are steadily improving their ties. They have plans to build a gas pipeline across the countries, connecting Turkmenistan with markets in Pakistan and India.
During the talks, media quoted Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as saying that business between the two sides reached $1b in 2014 and would double in 2015.
Turkmenistan, enriched by various energy deals, has become an beacon of wealth and stability in the region.
Turkmenistan, though, is increasingly concerned about the spread of Islamic militants north into Central Asia. It has placed its soldiers along the border with Afghanistan on high alert.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
