Sifting the Karakum
Turkmenistan Airfares Soar, Dismaying Travelers
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- Air Travel
- Turkmenistan
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Turkmenistan: Drivers Keep on Truckin', But Only for Money
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- Oil and Gas
- Turkmenistan
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Chevron Keeps Knocking at Turkmenistan’s Door
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- Oil and Gas
- Turkmenistan
- Turkmenistan News Brief
Chevron Vice President Jay Pryor crept in and out of Turkmenistan like a thief in the night last week. Or he tried to anyway.
During talks with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, members of a visiting US delegation spoke glowingly about future cooperation in sectors including the fuel and energy industry, according to a state television news report on June 14.
All the reports in Turkmen state media were impenetrable and vague, as is customary, but Pryor’s presence among other things offered a clue about their intentions.
Chevron, along with ExxonMobil, has had offices in Turkmenistan for years with the meager hope of finally persuading Ashgabat to give them some access to the country’s onshore gas fields, but no cigar to date.
With almost mocking insouciance, Turkmenistan continues trying to tempt its foreign suitors to bid for the licensed Caspian Sea hydrocarbon blocks up for tender.
Chevron has resisted that temptation, but it is now being linked to the pipeline project to transport gas through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India, known as TAPI.
People with historical knowledge of the Afghan pipeline will know that Chevron has some indirect experience with this project’s previous incarnation.
Unocal, which merged with Chevron in 2005, was the majority partner in a multinational consortium including Delta Oil Company of Saudi Arabia, Russia's Gazprom and Turkmenistan to build the pipeline in the 1990s. That idea was scuppered by the harsh realities of Afghan instability.
In a case of history repeating itself, the frontrunners in the proposed consortium to build TAPI reportedly include Chevron and Gazprom, as well as ExxonMobil. Other candidates cited in regional media include Indian state-owned gas processing and distribution company GAIL -- a detail just guaranteed to irk Pakistan.
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Turkmenistan Sets It Sights on Champions League
- Sifting the Karakum
- Media
- Sports
- Turkmenistan
- Turkmenistan News Brief
As reported by RFE/RL this week, Turkmenistan is for the first time broadcasting the European football championships to local viewers.
Now, state broadcasters are hoping to build on that precedent by securing the rights to European Champions League -- the continent’s premier club-level contest -- which is also hugely popular among local sports fans.
Viewers have in the past relied on their trusty satellite dishes to view that competition, usually picking up games beamed from Tajikistan, whose television stations are typically less precious about the legal niceties of broadcasting rights.
The country’s only sporting newspaper, “Turkmen Sport,” recently ran an article headlined “A Gift of the Hero President,” explaining that Turkmenistan has become a full-fledged member of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU). The article explained that this has given Turkmenistan the option to relay the Euro 2012 championship -- an achievement the article predictably attributes to a presidential order.
Full ABU membership, according sources at the state broadcaster, guaranteed Turkmenistan rights to Euro 2012 for the nugatory sum of $20,000. No information is available about the cost of ABU membership fees.
The broadcasting of the competition on local television has been perhaps most keenly welcomed in the provinces, where people are less likely to have satellite dishes and where such equipment is either not readily available or too expensive.
While there is obvious appeal to hearing sports commentary in one’s own language, RFE/RL does fairly note that the quality of local commentators may leave something to be desired:
The Russian and Turkish channels -- ORT, Rossiya, and TRT 1 -- have professional TV hosts adept at giving compelling play-by-play commentary.
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Turkmenistan Finds Oppressive Solution for Waning Newspaper Circulations
- Sifting the Karakum
- Media
- Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan: Berdymukhamedov Tweaks Kremlin
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- History
- World War II
In Turkmenistan, the former Soviet Union’s conflict with Nazi Germany is no longer “Great” nor is it “Patriotic.”
According to a report distributed by the opposition news website, The Chronicle of Turkmenistan, Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has banned the use of the term “Great Patriotic War” in reference to the Red Army’s defeat of Nazi forces.
State-controlled Turkmen media outlets employed the term in their coverage of Victory Day commemorations this past May 9. But immediately after the holiday, news outlet received instructions from the Ministry of Culture to use the term “1941-1945 war” from now on to describe the Soviet-Nazi conflict, the Chronicle of Turkmenistan reported.
The report went on to quote some journalists who said that some television and radio broadcasts that had been prepared for broadcast before the edict was issued had to be re-edited before they could be aired.
The Great Patriotic War remains the most widely used term in the CIS to describe the conflict. The term was first used just days after Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
Turkmenistan: Rebuilding After the Explosion that Never Happened
- Sifting the Karakum
- Turkmenistan
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Turkmenistan Signs TAPI: Now What?
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- Oil and Gas
- Turkmenistan
- Turkmenistan News Brief
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Turkmenistan: It’s Murdering Cats and Dogs
- Sifting the Karakum
- Animal Rights
- Turkmenistan
- Turkmenistan News Brief