JULY 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three months before a presidential election, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev gave 155 journalists apartments in a new Baku housing block. Critics of the president said the move was a crude effort to manipulate the media.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JULY 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — As expected, Davit Bakradze will represent the United National Movement party (UNM) in Georgia’s presidential election set for Oct. 27.
Mr Bakradze had to formally win the support of UNM delegates in six regions before officially becoming their candidate.
The 41-year-old Mr Bakradze won a seat in Georgia’s parliament aged 31 in April 2004 in the first parliamentary election after the 2003 Rose Revolution that had ushered Mikheil Saakashvili into power.
He is an experienced operator, taking over from Nino Burjanadze as head of the UNM’s parliamentary group in 2008 when she quit the party. Ms Burjanadze is also standing in the election as an independent. One of her election pledges is to see Mr Saakashvili prosecuted for various crimes that she alleges. Giorgi Margvelashvili, the current education minister, is the presidential candidate for Georgian Dream, a coalition headed by PM Bidzina Ivanishvili.
It’s lining up to be a colourful, and turbulent, time for Georgia. Its politics have always been partisan but since Mr Ivanishvili won a parliamentary election last year the animosity between the sides has become even more acute.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JULY 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik authorities have said they have found a body in a river that could be the leader of the minority Uzbek group in Tajikistan, Salim Shamsiddinov, who went missing in March, media reported. Analysts have said Mr Shamsiddinov’s disappearance may be linked to his business interests or to his politics.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in Tashkent, Uzbek President Islam Karimov and China’s foreign minister Wang Yi pledged to boost cooperation between the two countries. China has been steadily increasing its economic and diplomatic interests in Uzbekistan. Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to visit Uzbekistan in September.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s not over yet but Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has suffered a sharp fall in authority over the past nine months.
Lauded as the leader of the 2003 Rose Revolution that swept away the remains of the old Soviet power structures in Georgia, he has ceded authority across the country since his political party, United National Movement (UNM) lost a parliamentary election in October 2012.
The victors of the parliamentary election, Georgia’s richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili, and his opposition coalition, have gradually taken increased control of local councils as UNM deputies switched sides.
Police have also detained dozens of UNM deputies and business leaders on corruption charges.
Now, Mr Ivanishvili’s supporters have wrenched Tbilisi City Hall from the UNM. On July 20, Georgian media reported that members of the city council had voted out the Tbilisi city council leader after his support gradually drained away in the preceding weeks.
Coming before a presidential election scheduled for Oct. 27, the loss of Tbilisi City Hall will be another blow to Mr Saakashvili’s authority. For foreign business in Georgia, the next few months will be increasingly turbulent.
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(News report from Issue No. 144, published on July 22 2013)
JULY 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italy ruled that the extradition to Kazakhstan of the wife of former Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, Alma Shalabayeva, from Rome in May was illegal. Questions have been asked about the relationship between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Italian officials who sanctioned the extradition.
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(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
JULY 6 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan celebrated the 15th anniversary of its capital city, Astana. Astana Day, as it has been dubbed, coincides with celebrations for President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s birthday. His critics say that he is creating a cult of personality and that Astana has been built in his image.
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(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
JULY 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan state energy company SOCAR and Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft are negotiating on re-starting oil shipments along the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, media reported.
This is probably more significant for Azerbaijan-Russia relations than to energy supplies.
With construction finished in 1997, the Baku- Novorossiysk pipeline was one of the early post-Soviet Union pipelines. It runs 1,330km from Baku to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. From there the oil is shipped on to Europe. Volumes along the route, though, have been declining as Azerbaijan has worked to open up alternative routes to Europe, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Last year, the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline pumped only about 8% of Azerbaijan’s oil to its export markets.
In May 2013, throughput along the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline stopped altogether. Both sides were losing money on the deal. There wasn’t enough volume for the Russians and the price for its oil was too low for the Azerbaijanis.
It may be economically more efficient for the pipeline to stay idle but politically it needs to re-open.
Russia has approved a major arms deal with Azerbaijan, executives from Rosneft, the Russian state energy company, have visited Baku and senior Russian politicians have talked about a strategic deal between the two countries.
Re-starting an oil pipeline between the two countries may fit the pattern of increasingly close cooperation.
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(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
JULY 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, quit her role as Uzbekistan’s envoy to the UN in Geneva. Ms Karimova, who has been at the centre of business bribery allegations, said she wanted to concentrate on Uzbekistan, triggering speculation over her succession ambitions.
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(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
JULY 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s opposition coalition announced that well-known screenwriter Rustam Ibragimbekov would be its candidate in October’s presidential election. Mr Ibragimbekov is best known for co-writing the script for the 1994 Russian film “Burnt by the sun” which won an Oscar for best foreign film.
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(News report from Issue No. 142, published on July 8 2013)
