NOV. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov is weakening and is unaware of the real situation in Uzbekistan, his grandson, also called Islam Karimov, said in an interview with the BBC’s Uzbek language service. Mr Karimov Junior gave the interview in an apparent attempt to bolster his mother, Gulnara Karimova, who is under arrest in Tashkent.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan said that it had shot down an Armenian military helicopter, killing all three crew members.
Armenia later confirmed the downing of its helicopter. The incident triggered the most serious stand-off between the two neighbours since a UN negotiated cease-fire ended a war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1994.
Pro-Armenian rebels now control Nagorno-Karabakh but Azerbaijan has pledged to re-take the region and it has spent much of its recent oil wealth building up its army and buying the latest hi-tech weapons.
Azerbaijan’s military later released an animation showing how the Armenian helicopter had been flying over its territory and opened fire on its soldiers before it was shot down.
Armenia countered that the helicopter was on an unarmed exercise when it was shot down.
A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Baku said that most Azerbaijanis supported their government’s action.
“Armenia should respect Azerbaijan’s borders,” 28-year- old Muard Guliyev told the Bulletin. “If it doesn’t, there will be hard times head.”
International agencies and countries urged both Azerbaijan and Armenia to reduce the rhetoric.
Earlier this year, a shootout between the two sides killed several soldiers.
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(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uznews.net, a Russian-language dissident website reporting on Uzbekistan, has temporarily closed after being hacked. The editor of the website, Galima Bukharbayeva, told the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website that she may have to close the website permanently.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has placed an order for 1,500 trucks with Russian manufacturer Kamaz, Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported. The deal, worth a reported $125m, is a major coup for Kamaz and also underlines other Turkmenistan’s drive to build new infrastructure.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Italian energy major ENI has started to hand out the first contracts to build a shipyard at Kuryk on Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea coast. The shipyard is designed to increase ship building capacity and generate jobs. It was announced as a joint-venture with KazMunaiGaz last year, when the Kazakh economy looked stronger.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran is to build a hydro-electric plant in Armenia, one of the strongest signals yet that the two neighbours are developing ever closer relations.
The Iranian state-run news agency, Fars News quoted Iran’s energy minister Hamid Chitchian as saying that a memorandum of understanding had been signed between the two sides and that construction of the hydro-electric plant will start shortly.
The two neighbours have been working on the deal for some time.
In many ways, both Armenia and Iran have been forced to work with each other because of their various geo- political scenarios.
Armenia borders Azerbaijan and Turkey, both enemies, and is short of friends in the region. Iran is looking for allies to bolster its position during the current US- imposed sanctions.
Over the past few years Armenia and Iran have widened their cooperation, particularly with energy swaps.
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(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)
NOV. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will lose $65m in revenue this year because of a delay in restructuring the Kumtor gold mining project, the country’s biggest industrial operation, media quoted Eldar Tadzhibayev, head of the Kyrgyz mining union, as saying. Kumtor has been the focus of a major row between Kyrgyzstan and its Canadian partners.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An oil rig partially collapsed in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, killing at least one worker. This was the second fatal accident on Azerbaijan’s off-shore energy sector in less than a month, throwing up general safety concerns.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Remittances to Armenia from Russia were 8.6% lower in September this year than in the same month in 2013, media reported quoting the Central Bank. Armenia’s economy is closely linked to Russia which is suffering from a severe downturn triggered by a falling oil price and Western imposed sanctions.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan and Russia are close to agreeing an air defence deal, Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported quoting officials after a meeting between the two countries’ defence ministries. Russia already has a similar agreement with Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
