Category Archives: Uncategorised

Soviet-era films return to Georgian capital

TBILISI, OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After years of negotiations, copies of almost all Georgian movies produced during the Soviet Union and stored in the Russian film archive Gosfilmofond will be sent to Georgia, a move that campaigners said will fill a gap in its cultural heritage.

Most of these movies had been dubbed into Russian. By bringing them back to their homeland, campaigners have said that it will be possible to unite them with their original Georgian audio tracks and reproduce them with modern technology.

Marina Kereselidze, the president of the Cinema Heritage Protection Association, said that current generations are not aware of the greatness of Georgian cinema as they had not had the chance to watch what she described as masterpieces.

“New generations do not know Georgian movies because they are simply not available. We had an excellent movie production that lies dead in Moscow,” she said.

Talks on bringing these movies back to Georgia started in 2004, an initiative headed by Eldar Shengelaia, a Georgian and Soviet film director. Since 2013 the Georgian Dream coalition government, which had been looking to improve ties with Russia after they dipped to a post-Soviet low in 2008, has endorsed the initiative and developed a programme to fund it.

Mr Shengelaia told The Conway Bulletin that these movies represent a significant part of Georgian cultural identity.

“When the movies are back in their homeland a missing part of our culture will be back”, he said.

Part of those movies were censored under Soviet rule and Lana Gogoberidze, a Georgian film director, said she was thrilled to be able to watch films produced by her mother, Nutsa Gogoberidze, once again. Gogoberidze’s films were denounced as political and banned during Josef Stalin’s repression in the 1930s. She was sent to a Gulag for 10 years and airbrushed from Soviet cultural history.

“I saw one of my mum’s work, Buba, only a couple of years ago. I hope I will be able to watch her second movie too, which nobody has seen yet,” she said.

The first four films are expected to be sent to Tbilisi next month. Georgia has to pay for each film reel and the entire repatriation process is expected to last 10 years.

The Georgian archive in Gosfilmofond holds 381 feature films, 200 animated films, and more than 100 scientific popular films.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Georgian C. Bank keeps rates steady

OCT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank kept its key interest rate at 6.5% but said that it would lower it to 6% by the end of Q1 2017. It said that inflation and both consumer and business demand had slowed but that it was too early to cut rates now as the economy was still dealing with a previous cut. Annualised inflation in September measured 0.1% compared to a target of 5%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Uzbek mayor talks on anti-divorce measures

OCT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rakhmonbek Usmanov, the mayor of Tashkent, has said that he will name and shame couples who are seeking a divorce, Voice of America reported on its website. Quoting local media, VOA said that Mr Usmanov had become so exasperated with the growing number of divorces in Tashkent that he has drawn up a plan to name divorcing couples on a popular radio station and also in a local evening newspaper.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

EU holds more talks with Armenia

OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A fifth round of negotiations took place between the EU and Armenia over a new framework agreement. A framework agreement would pull Armenia, which is part of the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union, closer to the EU. Armenia needs to develop its allies. Russia, though, which has cool ties with the EU, is one of its biggest backers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Azerbaijani miner jumps

OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rallying on last week’s new discovery, Anglo Asian’s stock price nearly doubled, closing at 29p, a three-year high. On Oct. 17, the Azerbaijani miner said it discovered a new gold deposit 3km north of its main deposit at Gadabek. The company will further evaluate the deposit next year, when it plans to bring it to commercial production.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Turkmenistan introduces new banking law

OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to reassure nervous savers that the Turkmen banking sector was safe, Turkmenistan has introduced a new law which forces banks to guarantee saving deposits. Poor regional economic conditions have hit Turkmenistan hard with reports leaking out of the country of shortages and of the government running out of cash to pay its thousands of workers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Georgian soldiers shoot man

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Soldiers guarding a Georgian army base shot dead a man, named as Giorgi Shengelia, who they said had tried to break into the camp, media reported. Details of the incident at the Krtsanisi base near Tbilisi are thin. Media did not report whether the apparent attempted break-in was linked to crime or to Islamic extremism. The dead man’s family have accused the military of accidentally shooting Shengelia and then trying to cover it up.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Kazakh economy minister says the worst is past

ALMATY, OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s economy minister Kuandyk Bishimbayev said that the worst of an economic downturn linked to a drop in oil prices and a recession in Russia had passed, the most significant upbeat statement from the Kazakh government in two years.

Specifically, Mr Bishimbayev said that the free float of the tenge last year, which triggered a collapse in its value, had been painful but was now driving the economy and making business more competitive.

“We believe that the most difficult period has been passed for Kazakhstan’s economy. We estimate that the period was in the first quarter of this year, it was the time of the lowest oil prices,” he said.

“There has been steady growth in the economy since June this year.”

Despite Mr Bishimbayev’s upbeat message, the data points to a still sluggish economy.

Economists have predicted that Kazakhstan’s GDP growth will contract this year to nearly zero. But with oil prices pushing back up to $55/barrel, double their value from the start of the year, officials have adopted a more upbeat narrative, even if caveats are dropped in.

Talking to parliament the following day, Mr Bishimbayev said that a more efficient tax collection system was needed to increase revenues from smaller businesses which had grown used to avoiding paying VAT and other taxes.

“If we want to continue to develop our systems, of course, a certain increase in the tax burden is needed, but not at the expense of those companies which already pay full taxes but at the expense of those who work outside the system,” media quoted him as saying.

Specifically, he said a third of small businesses don’t pay their full taxes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Acting Uzbek President wants court strengthened

OCT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Continuing his apparent charm offensive ahead of a presidential election on Dec. 4, acting Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree to improve and strengthen the country’s judicial system. Media reported that the decree should strengthen the rights of the defendants and the independence of the courts. Human rights groups have said that the Uzbek state uses the courts to impose its political will.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Petrol prices rise by 35% in Uzbekistan

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan increased the price of petrol by nearly 35%, underscoring the inflationary pressure built into its economy. State energy company Uzbekneftegaz said it was rising the price of a litre of AI-80 petrol to 2,800 soum from 2,075 soum. Other grades of petrol were given a similar price rise. Uzbekistan has been steadily increasingly the price of key items such as gas, electricity and petrol as the value of its soum currency falls, angering and frustrating ordinary people.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)