Category Archives: Uncategorised

Turkmen president to fly to Berlin

AUG. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was due to visit German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, a rare European trip for Turkmenistan’s leader. The visit is likely to focus on potential gas supplies to Europe from Turkmenistan but human rights groups have been piling pressure on Ms Merkel to bring up their various human rights grievances with Mr Berdymukhamedov.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Halyk Bank sees profits rise

AUG. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Halyk Bank, Kazakhstan’s second largest lender, posted a year-on-year net profit increase of over 20% at the end of Q2 because it had been able to charge higher interest fees on loans. Importantly, too, Halyk Bank also said that non-performing loans had dropped to 12% of their portfolio from 12.9% at the end of March.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Azerbaijan starts Gulenist purge

AUG. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has started prosecuting people working in public offices allegedly linked to the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen who Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused of orchestrating a coup attempt against him in July, media reported. Azerbaijan is Turkey’s strongest ally in the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Kazakh archaeologists find ancient pyramid

AUG. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Archaeologists from the University of Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, said that they had discovered the remains of a pyramid used as a mausoleum for an ancient king or clan leader which may be 3,000 years old, media reported. If confirmed, the pyramid would be older than some Egyptian pyramids.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Athletes from C.Asia and S.Caucasus win medals at Rio Olympics

AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the Olympics in Rio, Uzbekistan won four gold medals, including three in boxing. Kazakhstan once again pulled in a decent haul, winning three golds, including a first ever swimming win, five silvers and nine bronzes. Tajikistan also won its first gold medal since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Dilshod Nazarov won gold in the hammer, becoming an instant national hero in Tajikistan. In the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan won a gold medal in taekwondo, Georgia won golds in wrestling and weightlifting and Armenia won a wrestling gold, its first for 20 years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Kazakhstan frees opposition activist

AUG. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan released on parole one of its most prominent opposition politicians from prison after almost four years, drawing praise but also demands to release more dissidents.

Vladimir Kozlov, head of the Alga! party, walked out of prison after Kazakhstan’s highest court decreed that he should be freed early. He had been the most high profile activist arrested after an oil workers’ strike in the western city of Zhanaozen turned into a riot with police which killed at least 15 people in December 2011 after a strike lasting several months.

He was sent to prison for 7-1/2 years for inciting social discord, although his supporters have said that he was only trying to help the oil workers promote their cause.

Speaking at a press conference after his release, Mr Kozlov said that pressure from the European Union and other human rights groups had led to his release.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quoted Mr Kozlov as saying that the EU had helped him “remain a human being” while in prison,

And the EU put out a brief statement too.

“The release on parole of the prominent Kazakh activist Vladimir Kozlov, who was imprisoned following the Zhanaozen events of 2011, is positive news,” it said.

“Further steps should now follow, leading to the full rehabilitation and release of all those civil society activists currently detained or under restriction of movement in Kazakhstan, in line with the country’s international commitments.”

Human rights groups have criticised Kazakhstan for cracking down on media and opposition groups heavily over the past few years. The Kazakh government has accused Mr Kozlov and others of being linked to coup plots.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Fire in Moscow factory kills 17 Kyrgyz migrant workers

AUG. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A fire in a printing warehouse in northeast Moscow has killed 17 migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan, the Russian authorities said.

The fires once again raise concerns over safety standards for migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia. In January, 12 migrant workers died in a clothing factory in Moscow.

Emergency services said that the fire at the printing warehouse was started by a faulty light on the first floor. Smoke spread quickly through a lift shaft to the fourth floor where the workers were sleeping. Most of the workers died in their sleep through smoke inhalation and another died later in hospital.

Unconfirmed reports also said that the factory mainly hired women.

Russia remains a major source of employment for workers from Central Asia and the S.Caucasus although there have been accusations of substandard working conditions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Kazakhstan expects delay in state asset IPO

AUG. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will wait until 2018 to start selling off state assets in what has been billed for years as the People’s IPO, Baljeet Kaur Grewal, managing director for portfolio investment at Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund told Bloomberg in an interview. He said the fund wanted to wait for oil prices to pick up before selling various assets.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Uzbek president nears death after stroke

AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov suffered a stroke on Saturday which left him with a brain haemorrhage, his daughter Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva said, setting up a succession battle over Central Asia’s most populous country.

Uzbekistan is, effectively, a lynchpin for stability in Central Asia. Its population of 31.5m is nearly as much as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan combined, it borders every other country in the region and had been the Soviet Union’s Central Asian administrative and logistical centre.

Under Mr Karimov’s rule, Tashkent lost out to Almaty as the commercial centre of Central Asia for Western multi-nationals but it still holds great sway at a more local level.

Mr Karimov has never publicly named a successor. His eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova, who had looked destined to succeed him fell from grace in 2014 over bribery allegations, leaving Uzbekistan set for a potentially messy succession battle.

Ms Karimova-Tillyaeva said her 78-year-old father had been hospitalised on Saturday after the stroke.

“At the moment it is too early to make any predictions about his future status,” she wrote on Instagram.

Uzbekistan is famed for its central role along the Silk Road, the fabled trade route several centuries ago that connected Europe and China.

Recently, though, Uzbekistan has earned a reputation for repression and for having a closed economy. Western companies have complained of state interference; accusations of slave labour have undermined Uzbekistan’s important cotton sector.

But the US, Russia and China — the major influences on Central Asia — will be hoping for a peaceful handover of power. The radical IS group has been growing in influence and the worry is that it may try to take advantage of any power vacuum.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Armenia’s CBank cuts interest rates

AUG. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate to 7.25% from 7.5% to help counter falling consumer prices, the lowest rate since 2014. Annualised deflation in Armenia measured 1.3% at the end of July, the Central Bank said, a trend that would continue.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)