News

On September 7 the Georgian parliament approved a decision on amnesty for those who were charged for violating the quarantine regime rules imposed in 2020, the Georgia Online website reports.

The total amount of fines for refusing to wear face masks and breaking quarantine rules and stay-at-home order has reached a sum of $25 million. After the amnesty, more than 245,000 Georgian citizens will be free from criminal and administrative charges and penalties.

The initiative of amnesty for COVID restrictions violations has been offered by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.

Currently, the wearing of face masks is a mandatory rule...

The largest Russian airline Aeroflot has suspended six pilots from work due to their refusal to get a vaccine. They were all sent on unpaid vacation, the RBC news agency reports, citing the airline representative Mikhail Demin.

Aeroflot employs 2,300 pilots in total.

The suspension was announced on Monday by the Sheremetyevo trade union of flight personnel. After persistent negotiation with the personnel, the company was able to convince 84% of them to get vaccinated.

At the same time, those employees who rejected to do so were suspended from flying and were sent on unpaid vacation even though the Russian...

Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska believes that the consequences of the coup in Guinea will be devastating for the world’s aluminum industry. He’s shared his worries on Twitter. 

According to the mogul, the state coup in the country can bring the aluminum market down.

«This situation can shake up the aluminum market because about 20% of the world’s production of aluminum relies on bauxites from this tiny and poor country,» he said.

On September 5, Guinean President Alpha Conde was captured by military forces, which have taken responsibility for the state coup. The rebels’ leader Mamady Doumbouya announced the...

According to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, it’s the right time to see the issue of nuclear power plant construction in Kazakhstan up close. 

While speaking with Eastern Economic Forum participants via video call, Tokayev stated that Kazakhstan needs a nuclear station.

However, before a final decision will have been made, all facets of the issue should be reviewed, and all the interests of citizens and businesses must be taken into account, he added.

The Eastern Economic Forum, which was held on September 2-4 in the Russian city of Vladivostok, is aimed to discuss relations between Russia, its neighbors of Asia Pacific...

Former Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev has begged the nation for pardon due to mistakes in realization of the Kumtor gold mining project, according to Interfax news agency.

He’s made a statement on August 8, 2021. 

«My dear fellow citizens, I sincerely beg your pardon for mistakes I made many years ago when I signed an agreement with a Canadian investor on Kumtor. I didn’t control this deal fully and trust my government but now I admit that Canadians got full control over Kumtor; they receive all the benefits with few dividends for Kyrgyzstan. All we have now is a...

Kazakhstan is ready to change export routes for its oil when the European carbon tax will enter into force. Among the best substitutes for the EU’s market are South Asian countries and China, according to Zhumabay Karagayev, the vice-minister of energy in Kazakhstan.

Currently, a large part of all the oil produced in the country goes to Europe.

«We believe that when a new tax code will be adopted, it may harm our oil and gas industry. Therefore, we consider such alternatives as China and South Asian countries,» he said at a briefing in Nur-Sultan.

The European Commission...

Kazakhstan’s national company KazMunayGas (KMG) is going to obtain a license for the exploration work at Kalamkas Sea, Khazar, and Auezov oil fields in the Kazakhstani part of the Caspian sea, according to the country’s energy vice-minister Zhumabay Karagayev.

Karagayev noted that the combined reserves of these fields might be assessed at 87 million tons of oil and 86 cubical meters of gas. These preliminary figures caused the interest of big oil industry players and now KMG wants to use its priority right.  

According to Kazakhstan’s national resources code, KMG always has a priority right and gets a...

The Esil district court of Nur-Sultan has announced its final decision on Berik Sharipov, a former head of SK Pharmacy. He was accused of violating two Criminal Code articles.

On the first accusation in misuse of his power he has been recognized not guilty; regarding the second claim, the court found him guilty of illegal possession of a weapon. He was obliged to pay a fee of $6.600 and then released out of custody.

The former head of SK Pharmacy Berik Sharipov was fired on July 10 last year due to severe criticism by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who accused health...

On Sunday Kazakhstan’s boxer, Kamshybek Kunkabayev got a confidential victory and qualified for the semi-final.  

Young Kazakhstani boxer KamshybekKunkabayev, who was a flag bearer during the Kazakhstani national team march at the official ceremony of the opening of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, has qualified semi-final in the heavyweight class. On Sunday he won against the Russian boxer Ivan Veryasov and made sure to get a bronze medal in boxing by the end of the Olympic Games. However, he won’t stop at this point and will fight for more valuable medals.

«The first round was good. In the second...

The total amount of new energy projects in Central Asia is estimated at about $52.8 billion. The leader in the sector is Uzbekistan, which counts for $21.8 billion (41.2%) of all, according to the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB).

So far, Uzbekistan has allocated $11 billion or 50.5% of its energy investments to the construction of a nuclear plant. About $9.44 billion of these investments will be dedicated to traditional sources of energy, including heat power stations ($6.88 billion) and hydropower stations ($2.55 billion).

«The role of renewable sources of energy in Uzbekistan is limited. Currently, only two projects are...

The Bank of Russia is going to put stricter control on mortgage loans with an initial installment of about 20% of the total cost of housing, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

In the first quarter this year, the number of mortgage loans with small initial installments has reached 45% on the new homes market in Russia. In comparison to the second quarter of last year, this figure was just 24%. On the secondary housing market, the rise was from 30% to 33%. In reaction to these changes, the regulator has decided to raise risk coefficients by 100 percentage...

LinkedIn, a popular social network for professionals, is out of service in Kazakhstan.

According to Kazakhstani officials, access to LinkedIn has been stopped because the service had touted online casinos and fake accounts, which is illegal in the country. The Ministry of Communications and Information had informed LinkedIn about violations but because there was no reaction from the service, its work in Kazakhstan has been stopped. 

However, the authorities promise to restore access to the service once all violations are fixed.

LinkedIn has also been blocked in Russia since 2016 due to allegedly violating rules designed for the proper storage...

Chairman of the Belarus Constitutional Court Petr Miklashevitch has aimed to revise age limits upwards, according to the BELTA news agency.

According to the current requirements, any Belarus citizen above 35 can be elected as president if he hasn’t left the country over the last ten years. Now, this rule might be changed. 

«We are suggesting to keep the presidential form of the government but to change some requirements to the presidency candidates legislated in the country’s Constitution. Presidency candidate should be at least 40 years old. Moreover, the resident qualification should be changed from 10 to 20 years...

Freedom Finance joint-stock company’s net earnings have risen 52% or about $4 million in the second quarter this year if compared to the same period last year, the company reported.

As Freedom Finance noted, the growth of net income was driven by the growth of net earnings from the changed price of financial assets evaluated by a fair price. All the fair price changes are reflected in the company’s income or loss reports (if the sum is more than $5.8 million) or decreasing net income from traded financial assets (for $2.3 million or 45%).

As of June 30, 2021, the...

Two employees of the Almaty International Airport have been detained by law enforcement officials as they were being accused of illegal sale of fake PCR test certificates.

A 29-year old woman and a 28-year man, both unidentified, were arrested by Almaty criminal police officials in conjunction with Kazakhstan’s Committee on National Security. 

According to the police, both suspects were involved in trading with fake negative PCR test results for those headed to travel abroad. All the certificates had been produced on their own with the help of a mobile app. They changed the personal information of applicants and were able...

Russian tech giant Yandex announced its innovative service of machine translation of video clips from one language to another. With help of the service, users can watch videos just in a browser with voiceover translation, according to RBK news agency. 

The new service combines the current service Yandex.Translate, biometry and speech recognition, and speech synthesizer. It is supposed that the service will be able to operate with various languages. However, now the prototype can work with video clips only in English.

The service can distinguish the sex of a human being on a video and then pick up the right...

In the first half of the current year, the civil aviation of Kazakhstan performed very well, thanks to the higher traffic of passengers and cargo.

According to data published by Kazakhstan’s National Bureau of Statistics, over the period from January to June 2021, the country’s airlines were able to earn more than $354,315,156, which is 52% higher compared to the same period last year. The vast part of these revenues have been provided by passengers, who pay for tickets (94%), while the rest is cargo transportation (6%). For example, this year airlines were able to sell tickets to 4.2 million...

According to the latest data, the death toll of coronavirus in Russian has reached 791 cases a day, which is higher than the day before (786 deaths). This is the highest rate since the beginning of the pandemic, TASS news agency reported.

Over the pandemic, the total death toll in the country is 146,069 people. As the Russian crisis center noted, the mortality rate is still the same – 2.48%. 

However, the total number of COVID-19 cases has reached 5,882,295 with a daily increase in cases of 0.43% on a relative basis. About 89.7% of these infected patients have successfully...

The U.S. authorities have imposed a ban on dog entry. Now, the list of countries with rabies risk consists of 113 states, including Kazakhstan, according to the RIA Novosti news agency. 

This decision has been made due to the high level of risk of dog rabies. There is no clear information on how long the ban can last.

The list of 113 countries under the ban for dog import includes such countries as Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Mainland China, Ukraine, Moldova as well as countries from Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and Asia. As U.S. health officials informed, the number...

In Tbilisi, people took to the streets near the parliament demanding the government to quit, according to RBK.

People have started to protest when it became known that Alexander Lashkarava, journalist and operator of the TV channel Pirvely, was beaten and died. On July 5 he participated in an LGBTQ march where participants were attacked by their opponents. According to the officials, there were about 50 attacks on media representatives including cameramen, journalists, and photographers. 

Many of those who took to the streets in Tbilisi blame Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili for failure to use his authority to protect media workers...

President Kassym Jomart Tokayev has released Saparkhan Omarov, the minister of agriculture from office.

On July 10 during a meeting with Kazakhstan’s government, President Tokayev said he believes the minister of agriculture should quit because it is the right decision due to the situation with the loss of cattle and forage shortage in the Mangystau and Kyzylorda regions.

«The Ministry has failed to take rapid and bold decisions, even though this is exactly what it is supposed to do. Therefore, I think that Saparkhan Omarov should quit the office,» said the president. 

According to Prime Minister Askar Mamin...

According to law enforcement officials of Nur-Sultan, a local chemical specialist had run a drug-producing laboratory where he made mephedrone and amphetamine.

The scientist, a 27-year old resident of Nur-Sultan, used to rent an apartment, which he managed to turn into a sophisticated chemical lab and producing center.

When police forced an entry to the apartment, they found a notebook with chemical formulas of synthetic drugs, electronic weight scales, some chemical components, bottles, small polyethylene bags, 10 grams of ready-to-use drugs and a computer for online trading.  

The criminal used to sell drugs through an online shop; when he...

According to a Kazakhstani company, the Brazilian producer has broken its contract and didn’t provide proper guarantee services. The airline estimates its cost of «unsafe» flights at $11.9 million plus court expenditures.

The claim against Brazilian Embraer was filed in New York on July 2 by Latham & Watkins LLP on behalf of Air Astana, which has kept five E190-300 in its fleet. Interestingly, they are almost new and remained in service for less than a year. All of them are well-known to Kazakhstani passengers thanks to the hand-made image of a snow leopard on the nose of the aircraft.

Kazakhstan’s Agency for Regulation and Development of the Financial Market has announced it uncovered a new financial pyramid in the country.

It is a routine practice for the regulator to monitor social networks as the agency tries to have a finger on the pulse of the financial life in the country. During such an examination, the agency has detected a fraud activity of Finiko, which is still actively advertising itself, particularly on Instagram by promising people a high level of return. According to the agency, this activity has all the signs of a Ponzi scheme, not a real investment business.