AUG. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Germany arrested Akhat Alpysbayev, the Consul-General at Kazakhstan’s consulate in Frankfurt, and a more junior Kazakh diplomat for smuggling cigarettes into the country, German newspaper Bild reported. The arrests will embarrass Kazakhstan which has been professionalising its diplomatic service.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR wants to buy 5m tonnes of oil from Russia’s Rosneft, media quoted SOCAR chairman Rovnag Abdullayev as saying. The plan is to reverse the flow of the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline to pump the oil to Azerbaijan where it will either be refined or exported to Europe.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)
AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia and Russia have made a deal to start up road freight and bus connections after they were cut seven years ago when relations between the neighbours soured, media reported. The deal is another significant step towards normalising Georgia-Russia relations after a brief war in 2008.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)
AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Showing off its global sporting ambitions, Kazakhstan has registered Almaty with the International Olympic Committee as a potential candidate to host the 2022 Winter Games, AP reported. Almaty hosted the Asian Winter Games in 2011. It previously failed in a bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)
AUG. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia have generally been cool for the past decade or so. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Baku on Aug. 13 only served to underline this.
Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, has looked to balance the interests of the country’s former master, Russia, with that of Europe, a major energy client. In previous years there has been talk of Russia buying up Azerbaijan’s gas supplies but this never materialised. Instead, Western energy firms have tightened their hold on Azerbaijan’s vast Caspian Sea energy supplies by buying up stakes in fields and building pipelines.
And despite rhetoric of improved ties between Moscow and Baku before a trip by Mr Putin, his first to the Azerbaijani capital in seven years, this general trajectory appears set.
Russia’s Rosneft had talked of an energy deal with SOCAR, the Azerbaijani state-owned energy company, but this never materialised. Sources told media outlets that a vague agreement had been signed but there were too many differences to commit to anything more meaningful.
These differences are varied. Some are personal, others strategic — last year Russia and Azerbaijan failed to agree on a lease extension for a Russian radar base — and others are commercial. Azerbaijan-Russia relations still need some mending.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, will meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time on Sept. 13 in Bishkek on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Russia and China led Central Asia-focused group, Iranian media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting its energy wealth, Turkmenistan unveiled plans to build a $2b port on its Caspian Sea coast. Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched the project. Turkish construction company Gap Insaat will build the port.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rompetrol, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas, will open 22 new petrol stations in Georgia by the end of 2014, media reported. This shows that Kazmunaigas is continuing to use Rompetrol to expand overseas and also that it believes that demand for petrol in Georgia is growing. Rompetrol already operates 70 petrol stations in Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan is on the verge of signing a deal to send 200,000 tonnes of cotton annually to Bangladesh, media reported. Bangladesh already imports cotton from Uzbekistan for its garment-making industry but this deal should smooth the process. Human rights groups accuse Uzbekistan of using child labour to pick cotton.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged France not to extradite former Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov to Kazakhstan where he is wanted on various charges including stealing billions of dollars and plotting a series of bomb attacks. HRW said Ablyazov was at risk of ill-treatment. French police arrested Ablyazov earlier this month.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
