Author Archives: Editor

Kazakh authorities clamp down on anti-China protests

ALMATY/FEB. 10 2021 (The Bulletin) — Apparently unconcerned by hardening language from the West towards Beijing and its treatment of ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs, the authorities in Kazakhstan jailed a man for protesting outside the Chinese consulate in Almaty.

Media reported that police detained Baibolat Kunbolatuly, who was part of a 10-person protest mainly of women holding photos of missing sons, brothers and husbands outside the consulate the day before, and that a court then efficiently sentenced him to 10 days in jail for breaking rules around mass gatherings. In Kazakhstan, protests require written permission from the authorities.

Mr Kunbolatuly had been protesting against the disappearance of his brother in China, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. He suspects that his brother is being held in one of China’s, by now notorious, re-education camps which have been built in Xinjiang province over the past four years to hold hundreds of thousands of Muslims.

China has said that the camps are education-focused and that they are designed to help ethnic Uyghurs and Kazakhs improve themselves. Human rights groups have called them prisons, a view Western governments are coming round to.

In Kazakhstan, reporting on the camps in Xinjiang has been minimal but protests against China and its actions in Xinjiang are becoming more widespread.

The issue of China’s treatment of its Muslim minorities in Xinjiang is a thorny issue for the Kazakh government.

It is reliant on Chinese cash to fund various infrastructure projects and China is also a major stakeholder in Kazakh industry. The flipside is that there are an estimated 200,000 ethnic Kazakhs living in Xinjiang and a large ethnic Uyghur population living in Kazakhstan.

And, embarrassingly for Kazakh officials, the major information leaks from Xinjiang over the past few years have also come from Kazakhs escaping over the border into Kazakhstan. They now want to prove to their Chinese counterparts that they are reliable partners.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Uzbekistan moves election forward to October

Leave a Reply

FEB. 9 2021 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree into law that will shift a presidential election this year to October from December. Lawmakers said that they wanted the election date shifted to October because the cold winter may deter people from voting. Uzbekistan’s presidential election is now scheduled for Oct. 24.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Armenian president returns to Yerevan after coronavirus treatment in London

Leave a Reply

FEB. 9 2021 (The Bulletin) — Armenian President Armen Sargsyan, who caught the coronavirus on a trip to London over the Christmas period, returned to Yerevan. Mr Sargsyan was hospitalised for a brief period when he was ill with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Armenian ruling party says it will consider early election in 6 months

Leave a Reply

FEB. 8 2021 (The Bulletin) — Armenia’s ruling party, the My Way faction, said that it would consider an early parliamentary election in six months time, once the country had completed a plan put forward by PM Nikol Pashinyan to stabilise the country after losing a war against Azerbaijan for control of Nagorno-Karabakh. Protesters have been calling for Mr Pashinyan, who took power in a revolution in 2018, to resign.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Kazakh pilot makes emergency landing on road

Leave a Reply

FEB. 8 2021 (The Bulletin) — A Kazakh pilot made an emergency landing with his single-engine biplane on a road in east Kazakhstan. Media reported that the pilot made the emergency landing on the road near Ust-Kamenogorsk after power in the single-engine of his An-2 plane failed. There were three crew and two medical staff on the flight. Nobody was injured. An-2 were mass-produced by the Soviet Union after WW2 and are known for their durability.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Hundreds of people protest in Tbilisi and Batumi against coronavirus curfew

Leave a Reply

FEB. 7 2021 (The Bulletin) — Hundreds of people in Tbilisi and Batumi protested against a curfew imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The curfew comes into force each night at 9pm and is lifted at 5am. Anybody out on the streets during this time is fined. Georgia has seen some of the most well-supported anti-lockdown protests in the FSU.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Taliban travel to Ashgabat for talks on TAPI gas pipeline

Leave a Reply

FEB. 7 2021 (The Bulletin) — Looking for security guarantees for the TAPI gas pipeline that it wants to build across Afghanistan, Turkmen officials held talks in Ashgabat with the Taliban. TAPI is an ambitious project, pushed by gas-rich Turkmenistan and part-funded by the Asian Development Bank, to build a pipeline across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India. One of the main problems with the project has been security concerns in Afghanistan.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Uzbekistan wants to attract $2.5b investments for its telecoms sector

Leave a Reply

FEB. 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan wants to attract investments of $2.5b to upgrade its telecoms sector, media reported by quoting PM Abdula Aripov. The plan is part of Uzbekistan’s general investment strategy and will attract interest. Uzbekistan is Central Asia’s most populous country, with a population of 33m.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Eurasian Economic Union wants to streamline migrant worker processes

Leave a Reply

ALMATY/FEB. 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) wants to speed up the digitalisation of labour migrants’ documents to help member states recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

At a meeting of heads of governments of EAEU member states in Almaty, Russian PM Mikhail Mishustin said that reviving labour markets, cutting down on paperwork through digital records and providing vaccines so that people can travel for work was vitally important for the bloc.

“This is a single service that you can use to find vacancies, draw up the necessary documents, including medical insurance and it will also help with the choice of housing,” he said of a digitalisation plan.

Critics of the EAEU — which has been in operation since 2015 and, alongside Russia includes Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan as members — have said that the bloc pushes the Kremlin’s agenda and that it is cumbersome, creates red tape and is slow to get things done.

They also said that the plan put forward by Mr Mishustin may be a case in point. He envisages it coming into action in 2022.

But pressure is building on the EAEU to reform and to become more nimble. At the Almaty meeting, Kyrgyz’s PM Ulubek Maripov described the need to tear down barriers that slow labour movement in the EAEU as “acute”.

Russia attracts millions of labour migrants from Central Asia each year, generating huge remittance flows. This dried up in 2020 because of the pandemic. Businesses in Russia now complain about a lack of cheap labour and in Central Asia, governments report a sharp drop in remittances.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Azerbaijan says it will build a floating solar power station

Leave a Reply

FEB. 5 2021 (The Bulletin) — Azerbaijan said that it will build a floating power station with a capacity of 100kW on Boyuksor Lake near Baku, part of its drive to ramp up power production. It named Spain’s Gamma Solutions as the main contractor for the project. Azerbaijan, like other countries in the FSU, has been trying to boost power generation capacity to match a surge in demand.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin