OCT. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – China’s football coach Gao Hongbo resigned after his team lost 2-0 to Uzbekistan in a World Cp qualifier match. Mr Gao had returned to coaching China this year, after a two-year stint in 2009- 2011. In September, Uzbekistan was ranked in the top-50 national teams in the FIFA ranking.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
OCT. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – After seven months of deflation, some prices in Armenia have started to rise, the Statistics Committee said. Food prices decreased marginally, but non-food items and the service sectors registered inflation of around 1%.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
OCT. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – SOCAR Turkey Enerji, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR, said it will consider selling part of a 5.32% stake it directly owns in Petkim, a petrochemical complex, near Izmir. SOCAR Turkey is also considering participating in the construction of the new Star refinery together with Russia’s Rosneft. Sustained low oil prices have pushed SOCAR to reshuffle their investments abroad.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
BISHKEK, OCT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The US and British embassies in Kyrgyzstan issued a warning that a terror attack was likely, barely six weeks after a car bomb was rammed into the Chinese embassy.
The warning will frustrate the Kyrgyz authorities who recognise the damage it will do to the country’s reputation as both a place to do business and as a tourist destination. Local media quoted the Kyrgyz National Security Committee as saying that they had no information on potential terror attacks.
In a statement, though, the US embassy said a terror attack was likely. “The US embassy has received information indicating the possibility of terrorist attacks, which may potentially involve kidnapping and hostage taking, targeted against local authorities and foreign diplomats during the month of October,” it said.
The warning didn’t give any specifics on who posed the threat or where the information came from but Kyrgyzstan, and other countries in Central Asia, have been dealing with a recruitment drive by the extremist IS group and other affiliated Islamic radical groups which want to destabilise the region. The separatist Uyghur group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, was also blamed for the car bomb against the Chinese embassy on Aug. 30. Only the driver of the car bomb was killed.
Kyrgyzstan has been marketing itself to Western tourists as the Switzerland of Central Asia, with snow- capped mountains and Alpine lakes. It also wants to attract more foreign investors. In 2012 Kyrgyzstan became the first country in the region to scrap visas for citizens of most Western countries.
Warnings of potential terror attacks and hostage-taking, though, will dent these drives to attract tourists and business.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
OCT. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Baku released Javid Huseynov, an Azerbaijani international football player jailed at the end of May for links to the killing of a journalist in 2015. Initially sentenced to four years in prison for obstructing justice, Mr Huseynov was freed after an appeal. A group of people linked to Mr Huseynov beat Rasim Aliyev, a journalist, to death after he had criticised Mr Huseynov’s behaviour.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
ALMATY, OCT. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field, Kazakhstan’s Great White economic hope, started producing oil for the first time since 2013, lifting spirits after a tough couple of years for the Kazakh economy Energy minister Kanat Bozumbayev confirmed the re-start of the $50b Kashagan, which was shut down in 2013 after a couple of weeks of operations because of leaky pipes.
“I checked this morning and production is active from four wells, yielding approximately 90,000 barrels/day,” he told media.
Kashagan is one of the biggest international oil finds of the the last 30 years and Kazakhstan hopes that it will propel the country into the premier league of oil producers.
At peak production, Kashagan aims for an output of 370,000 barrels/day. Total Kazakh production is currently 1.5b barrels/day.
Eni, Shell, ExxonMobil, Total, CNPC, Inpex and Kazmunaigas operate the Kashagan field.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
TBILISI, OCT. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The ruling Georgian Dream coalition government easily won a parliamentary election in Georgia with nearly 50% of the vote, almost double the votes won by the United National Movement party (UNM) of former president Mikheil Saakashvili.
The result confirms Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire bankroller of the Georgian Dream, as the most influential man in the country.
“Instead of a government with confused members, Georgia genuinely has the government that is devoted to people,” he said after victory was declared.
It also, importantly, puts Georgia on an increasingly conservative and pro-Russia trajectory.
The Georgian Dream has allied itself to the Georgian Orthodox Church a staunchly conservative, and influential, institution that abhors homosexuality.
The conservative direction of the new Georgian parliament was bolstered by the entry of the staunchly nationalist and religious Alliance of Patriots for the first time. They cleared the 5% barrier in the proportional representation element of the vote to secure seats in the 150-seat parliament.
The Georgian Dream coalition, now officially headed by PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili , won its first election four years ago, beating the UNM. This year’s election had been dubbed a grudge re-match between the two parties with Mr Ivanishvili and Mr Saakashvili playing Machiavellian roles from the sidelines.
From Ukraine, where he is governor of the Odessa region, Mr Saakashvili said the election had been fixed. “This election was fabricated through many forms of manipulation to get a final result which would bring absolute victory to Georgian Dream,” he said.
But ODIHR, the OSCE’s main election watchdog, said the election had been largely free and fair.
“Strongly competitive and well- run, yesterday’s elections offered an opportunity for voters to make informed choices about their options in a pluralistic but polarized media environment,” Ignacio Sanchez Amor, the leader of the short-term OSCE observer mission, said.
The Central Election Commission said that turnout was around 51%.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
OCT. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ardshinbank, one of Armenia’s top- three banks, bought Areximbank from Gazprombank, the financial arm of Russia’s giant gas company, for an undisclosed amount.
Areximbank was Armenia’s fifth- largest bank, according to local media and the buy-out will push Ardshinbank towards becoming the largest bank in Armenia. Its assets will grow by 20% to around 540b dram ($1.1b) after the deal. Karen Safaryan, a Russian billionaire businessman with Armenian roots, founded Ardshinbank in 2003 and remains its beneficial owner.
Analysts said that US sanctions against Gazprom and its subsidiaries and Armenian Central Bank requirements for commercial banks could be behind the buy-out.
In 2014, the Central Bank ordered banks to increase their minimum capital requirements by six times to 30b dram ($63m) by January 2017. The rule has prompted a round of mergers.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko flew into Samarkand to visit the grave of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who died last month. Acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev welcomed Mr Lukashenko and accompanied him to Karimov’s grave.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
TBILISI, OCT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian Dream supporters, wearing their trademark blue shirts, celebrated long into the night on Sunday after it became clear that they had won a crushing victory over their rivals, the United National Movement party (UNM).
Make no mistake, the rivalry between the Georgian Dream and the UNM runs deep. Both sides accuse the other of fraud, violence and of trying to destabilise the country and, up until the first votes were cast on Oct. 8, it was unclear which party would win the parliamentary election. The Georgian Dream ruling coalition is bankrolled by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. The UNM is the party of Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president who is now the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine.
Now, it’s clear that the Georgian Dream has scored a major victory which could, potentially, end the UNM’s push for a comeback for good. The Central Election Commission said that the Georgian Dream had polled nearly 49% of the votes in the proportional representation element of the election, against 27% for the UNM. The Georgian Dream vote was down only slightly from 2012, when it won power for the first time, despite the tough economic times but the UNM vote crashed from 40% in 2012.
And it was clear from conversations on the streets of Tbilisi just why the Georgian Dream had won. Essentially the UNM, and Mr Saakashvili, is remembered for poisoning relations with Russia, triggering a 2008 war and torturing prison inmates — an episode highlighted by a TV drama series, paid for by Mr Ivanishvili, which was broadcast shortly before the election.
“People value peace more than economic development,” Lika, a 30-year- old translator, said. “The UNM did a lot for Georgia, but the moment they became authoritarian, they lost our trust.”
These sentiments were shared by Giorgi, a 50-year-old war veteran working as a taxi driver in Tbilisi.
“I voted for the Georgian Dream because there is no alternative. We can’t let the nationalists slip back into power. They were violating laws, torturing, even killing political opponents. I don’t want that. Georgia needs the rule of law first,” he said.
And perhaps, too, Mr Saakashvili also damaged the UNM’s chances. Voters complained that it wasn’t clear what his role was and whether voting for the UNM would mean his return.
Now, after the UNM’s defeat, they won’t find out.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
