Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakh businessman buys Turkish companies

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurlan Saurambayev, CEO of SAT & Co, a Kazakh industrial conglomerate, bought two of the company’s Turkish subsidiaries, SAT&Co Holding A.S. and SAT&Co Madencilik A.S. for an undisclosed amount. Powerful businessman Kenes Rakishev owns 77.7% in SAT & Co. Mr Rakishev had increased his stake in late 2015, after forcing former CEO Rollan Mussinov to step down. Mr Saurambayev was appointed CEO in October 2015.

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

Japan’s Mitsubishi to build new thermal power station in Uzbekistan

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation signed a contract with state-owned Uzbekenergo for the construction of a second co-generation station at the Navoi thermal power plant which will significantly increase the plant’s capacity.

Navoi, in central Uzbekistan, is one of the country’s main industrial hubs.

Mitsubishi had participated in the construction of a 478 megawatt co- generation station that the Uzbek government commissioned in 2009.

Electricity generation is a major issue in the region with governments scrambling to replace aging Soviet- era technology.

Mitsubishi will work together with Turkey’s Calik Enerji. The two companies said construction of the new, 450 megawatt station will be completed by 2019.

Mitsubishi and Uzbekenergo had agreed on the feasibility of the new station in 2014. Like several other major infrastructure projects, the expansion of Navoi had been questioned due to the regional economic slump.

ENDS

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

Azerbaijan jails for 10 years activist who graffitied Heydar Aliyev statue

OCT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Baku sentenced a 22-year- old activist to 10 years in jail after he sprayed anti-government slogans on a statue of former president, Heydar Aliyev.

Giyas Ibrahimov was arrested with fellow activist Bayram Mammadov in May 2016, hours after a photo of the graffiti was posted on Facebook. Both were later charged with drug possession although the men said that these were bogus and were politically motivated.

Opposition groups have said that the authorities wanted a particularly heavy sentence against Ibrahimov because of the sensitivity of defacing a state of Heydar Aliye, father of current president Ilham Aliyev.

Before he was led away at the end of his trial, Ibrahimov was defiant “We didn’t violate any law, we violated the rules of a corrupt system,” he said.

Mr Mammadov, who was arrested with Ibrahimov, is still waiting for his case to be heard.

Erkin Gadirli, academic and member of the opposition REAL movement told The Conway Bulletin that President Aliyev would have taken the defacing of the statue personally.

“The punishment was so severe in order to teach a lesson to other activists,” he said.

The court’s verdict was also rare because the judge handed out a longer jail sentence than the prosecution had asked for. The prosecutor had asked for nine years but Ibrahimov was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Just hours after the verdict was passed, slogans of solidarity and support for the jailed activist started appearing on Baku’s streets. Importantly for the authorities, though, none of the many symbols and statues of Heydar Aliyev were defaced.

Others, though, thought the sentence was justified.

“I am against random street graffiti. As far as I know Giyas has been arrested on a drug charge,” Seda Huseyn wrote on a blog. “Anyway, what’s the point of slogan-scribbling? It works for the interests of human rights defenders. They use Giyas for their filthy ambitions like receiving grants from abroad.”

Europe and the US have criticised Azerbaijan during the past few years over its treatment of opposition activists. It’s likely that Ibrahimov’s case will generate more criticism of the Azerbaijani authorities

ENDS

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

GDP growth slows in Turkmenistan

OCT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s GDP annualised growth slowed to 6.2% in the first nine months of the year, down from 7.5% during the same period in 2015, the Turkmen state news agency said. Turkmen official statistics are considered unreliable and the information leaking out of the country points to severe economic hardship. The data is valuable in highlighting the economic slow- down that Turkmenistan and its neighbours are dealing with.

ENDS

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

Uzbek government sends delegation to Osh

BISHKEK, OCT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A high-ranking Uzbek government delegation visited Osh in Kyrgyzstan for a groundbreaking meeting which highlighted both improving relations between the two neighbours and the charm offensive that Uzbekistan’s president-in-waiting, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has laid on since Islam Karimov died in September.

Uzbek delegations have also travelled to Tajikistan and China since Mr Mirziyoyev was appointed acting president. His press office has also said that he has spent time talking to Turkmen president Kurbangly Berdymukhamedov.

This friendly foreign policy approach is in marked contrast to the stance that Karimov took when he was president. He preferred to keep a distance from his neighbours, often souring relations.

The most remarkable change has been towards Kyrgyzstan where border rows had threatened to tip into war.

ENDS

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

Gazprom Armenia appoints new CEO

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gazprom Armenia, a subsidiary of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom, appointed former deputy director Hrant Tadevosyan as its new CEO. Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller formally introduced Mr Tadevosyan during a visit to Yerevan. His predecessor, Vardan Harutyunyan, was appointed to head the state revenues committee earlier in October.

ENDS

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

China’s Huawei to roll out 4G in Azerbaijan

OCT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese telecoms giant Huawei said it will roll out a 4G service in Azerbaijan’s exclave region of Nakhchivan, highlighting China’s growing business influence in the South Caucasus.

Separated from mainland Azerbaijan by a sliver of Armenian territory, Nakhchivan also borders Turkey and Iran.

The region, which spans 5,500 square km, roughly as big as Brunei, holds symbolic significance as the birthplace of Heydar Aliyev, first president of independent Azerbaijan and father of current leader Ilham Aliyev.

The animosity between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh region means that Nakhchivan has, effectively, been cut off from the rest of Azerbaijan. To power the region, Azerbaijan and Iran swap gas supplies.

This makes the deal with Huawei, and China’s influence, important for Nakhchivan.

“Now people living in most distant villages of Nakhchivan can enjoy a high-speed internet,” China’s Global Post quoted Vasif Talibov, speaker of Nakhchivan’s autonomous parliament, as saying.

No details of the cost of the deal, or whether Azerbaijan was paying for any of the 4G roll-out, were released.

ENDS

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

Comment: Support rises for Armenia daredevil protesters, says Demytrie

OCT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — When Armenian gunmen calling themselves the Daredevils of Sassoun after a group of lionised 8th century freedom fighters seized a police compound in Yerevan in July, the world’s attention was focused on another story unfolding next door – an attempted coup in Turkey.

Yet what took place in Armenia was an unprecedented strike against the state. Veterans from a war in the 1990s between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the so-called Daredevils held police officers and medics hostage for two weeks before surrendering to the authorities without a fight.

But, by then, thousands of Armenians had come out onto the streets to express their solidarity with the gunmen.

In the eyes of the authorities the gunmen were criminals, official media described them as terrorists. Three policemen died during the siege, afterall. But on the day of their surrender, supporters gathered outside the Opera House in central Yerevan chanting their names and calling them heroes.

One long-term South-Caucasus observer told me that what happened in July was the emergence of a new and radical form of anti-government protest, likely to be repeated in other post-Soviet oligarchies.

There was no single reason for the gunmen’s actions, instead they were driven by an aggregate of problems facing Armenian society.

Poverty, corruption, inequality, and the authorities’ inability to resolve the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh Their actions prompted mixed feelings among Armenians. Some were outraged that the gunmen were using violence to achieve their goals. Others saw this aggressive action as necessary but poorly executed.

But many were inspired. Since their arrest, Daredevil supporters have been mythologising them, writing songs about their sacrifice for a noble cause – a more prosperous and free Armenia.

Since the siege and the protests, President Serzh Sargsyan has promised reforms, and a new PM and government has been ushered in. Few, though, believe deeply rooted social and economic problems can be solved so easily.

And the story of the Daredevils is not over. Once a trial date is set, their support base will become active again, demanding their release. That raises the prospect of another spell of street protests in Armenia.

By Rahyan Demytrie, a BBC correspondent in the South Caucasus

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

Two workers die on construction sites in Georgia

OCT. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two construction workers died in two separate incidents on building sites in Tbilisi within a couple of days, highlighting the often poor levels of health and safety in Georgia. The first man to die fell from a building. The second died from a suspected heart attack. Georgia is going through something of a construction boom at the moment.

ENDS

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

EBRD to funnel Kyrgyzstan MicroCredit Company

OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has signed a deal with Kyrgyzstan’s First MicroCredit Company to funnel $1m to households in the south of the country for projects to improve their energy and water efficiency. Projects that will qualify for EBRD funding include installing energy efficient windows, doors and water pumps.

ENDS

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