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The Regions This Week
May 4, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 9
Eurasia
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s theatrical presentation of what he claimed was dramatic new evidence of Iran pushing on with efforts to hide and even expand acquired nuclear weapons knowhow ran into a sceptical response from a former senior official of the UN nuclear watchdog who pointed out that he had already seen at least some of the so-called key evidence 13 years
ago and that it was made public in 2011. Iran described Netanyahu’s claims as a “rehash of old allegations”.
The encrypted Telegram Messenger mobile and desktop messaging app has been banned in Iran on the grounds of protecting national security. Telegram, subscribed to by more than half of Iran’s population of 80mn, is a bother to the authorities given its usefulness in secretly organising anti-regime demonstrations.
Turkmenistan opened a new $1.5bn cargo and passenger seaport facility on the Caspian Sea. The Turkmenbashi port infrastructure will boost its revenues from handling traffic on North-South shipping routes, tripling the remote Central
Asian country’s annual cargo handling capacity to 25mn-26mn tonnes. The launch is a rare piece of bright economic news for the Turkmen, coming as it does amid critical budgetary issues.
Iran is set to sign an interim agreement with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) on May 17. The agreement provides for the formation of a free-trade zone for an initial limited range
of 350 goods and will be subject to ratification, as it contains rules stipulated by Russian law.
Two Iranian airlines, Iran Aseman Airlines
and Iran Air Tours, signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Sukhoi for the delivery of an initial 40 SuperJet 100 passenger planes on the sidelines of the Eurasia Airshow
in Turkey. IranAir’s draft multi-billion-dollar deal to buy Boeing aircraft is, however, hanging by a thread – it will collapse if Donald Trump pulls the
US out of the nuclear deal in an announcement due on or before May 12.
The Central Bank of Iran is to instruct banks to
increase their capital adequacy ratio to 12%
from 8% to meet Basel III banking regulations.
Iran proposed a gas swap between Pakistan and Turkmenistan using Iranian pipelines, pushing the case that the long-planned Turkmenistan- Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline is unlikely to ever become operational.
French sporting goods retailer DECATHLON is to
open a chain of stores across a number of cities in Kazakhstan, Kazakh Invest National Company for Investment Support and Promotion said.
Small Kazakh lender Qazaq Banki, with assets of $1bn, had its deposit licence suspended by the central bank for three months. Repeated violations of regulatory requirements were cited.
At least four people were injured in a fire that broke out in the 33-storey former Trump Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Given the choice between joining the EU or the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), 65% of Georgians opted for the EU and 21%
for the EEU in a National Democratic Institute (NDI) poll. In his annual speech to parliament, Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili urged the country’s government to stick with a "policy of strategic tolerance" in relations with Russia.
Transparency International urged Mongolia’s President Battulga Khaltmaa to cease threatening to fire the head of the country’s Independent Authority Against Corruption (IAAC). Khaltmaa blamed the IAAC for Mongolia’s poor performance on the Corruption Perceptions Index.