Category Archives: Uncategorised

Tajik conscript dies after alleged hazing

APRIL 22 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — A 22-year-old Tajik army recruit has died after an alleged beating from more senior soldiers, media reported, highlighting what it said was a degrading Soviet-era culture of bullying and hazing in Tajikistan’s military.

Bakhtiyor Kurmonmadov died on April 19, five days after signing up to join the army.

His relatives said that there were bruises all over Kurmonmadov’s body. This was contested by an official report which said he died from a heart attack during an exercise.

To many, Kurmonmadov’s death was an indication of just how institutionalised bullying is in the Tajik army.

The system of informal beatings and bullying of young recruits by more senior soldiers even has a name, ‘dedovshina’ which literally means ‘grandfatherism’.

It’s a system that is spread across the armies of the former Soviet Union. A handful of recruits are killed or badly injured every year.

Last month, another conscript in Kurmonmadov’s unit was taken to hospital after a severe beating from older soldiers.

Amridin is a 24-year-old graduate,who was conscripted into the Tajik army two-years-ago. He described to a Conway Bulletin correspondent how he ended up in the army and severity of his treatment there.

“I was literally kidnapped in the streets and sent to the army. When we were new recruits, older soldiers beat, tortured, and harassed us in whatever way they wanted,” he said. “You cannot avoid getting beaten up because beating new conscripts is like an unwritten rule in the army.”

He coughed and complained about his health. He said that some of his colleagues had been beaten so badly that they would now be no use on a battlefield.

“If it continues in this way, we cannot defend our country if an enemy attacks us,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Turkmenistan returns body

APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan returned the body of one of the workers from an Azerbaijani oil rig who had been swept away in a storm in December. Around three dozen people were killed when the storm smashed into oil rigs in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea in the world’s worst off-shore oil rig accident for two decades. Many of the bodies have been carried by currents across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Moody downgrades Kazakh sovereign debt

APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Kazakhstan’s sovereign debt rating to Bbb3 from Bbb2 and gave it a negative outlook because of sustained low oil prices and a currency devaluation last year which is said had weakened Kazakh banks. Moody’s said: “The negative outlook reflects ongoing pressure on the banking sector’s solvency, which also constrains the growth outlook and poses financial and fiscal risks.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Azerbaijan loans $500m to Iran

APRIL 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Azerbaijani government said it will loan $500m to Iran to finance the completion of the Rasht-Astara railway segment, part of a rail link from Qazvin to Astara, around the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. Mahmoud Vaezi, Iran’s minister for communications told the Trend news agency that the Qazvin-Rasht section is almost complete and Iran will use the funds to complete the link to Azerbaijan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Kazakhstan and Russia ease international calls

APRIL 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhtelecom and Rostelecom, the national telephone operators in Kazakhstan and Russia, agreed to cut costs for phone calls between the two countries. Around 80% of international phone calls from Kazakhstan are to Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Armenia’ parliament rejects cement plant debt

APRIL 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s parliament rejected a bill to write-off part of the Hradzan cement plant’s debt, casting doubts on the company’s survival. The bill was designed to pardon 510m dram ($1.1) in overdue taxes. Last year VTB Bank Armenia took control of the plant. The plant’s total debt is estimated at 935m drams ($1.9m).

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Georgia to use Bitcoin tech for new land registry

TBILISI, APRIL 27 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian government and BitFury, a US company with a base in Tbilisi that develops technology used by the Bitcoin virtual currency, will jointly develop a land registry system which they hope will set new global standards.

The new model for the National Agency of Public Registry will reduce bureaucratic practices and costs for citizens, according to officials.

“By building a blockchain-based property registry, Georgia can show the world that we are a modern, transparent and corruption-free country that can lead the world in changing the way land titling is done,” Georgian media quoted Papuna Ugrekhelidze, the agency’s chairman, as saying.

Blockchain technology is a data- base system that Bitcoin has pioneered. It is considered the most efficient system to log data.

The Agency of Public Registry said the cost of a land registry transactions will drop to virtually zero.

Last September, BitFury said it would invest $100m in a new Technology Park in the Gldani district of Tbilisi. BitFury already operates a data centre in Gori, 70km west of Tbilisi.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

The Savitsky museum becomes Uzbekistan’s desert gem

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) NUKUS/Uzbekistan — This city, the capital of Karakalpakstan in west Uzbekistan, has yet to benefit from the shiny upgrades that have advanced the country’s larger cities.

A few new apartment blocks aside, there is little sign of redevelopment. There are no new malls and no new roads.

The airport is tiny and time warped, with just one conveyor belt for luggage. Just beyond the city limits is miles of parched desert scattered with saxaul trees, scrubby bush and abandoned poultry farms. It is a depressing place.

The one gem in Nukus’ crown is the Savitsky Museum.

Attracting a few thousand international visitors a year, it houses a 90,000-strong collection of world- class Russian avant-garde artworks. Igor Savitksy, a Kiev-born artist and collector, is celebrated for single handedly saving these works in the 1950s by hiding them away in Nukus, far from the disapproving eyes of the USSR’s fanatical leaders.

Recently the museum has been in the news after its long-serving and highly dedicated director, Marinika Babanazarova, was fired for unspecified reasons. To fans of the museum, it appeared that Nukus’ one shining light was in danger of going out.

As I toured the museum I met a curator who explained some of the more famous art pieces to me. Tentatively, I told her that I’d read the reports about Marinika being fired and I asked where she was now. The curator’s eyes fell to the floor.

“She is here in Nukus. We hope she will come back one day. We miss her, but we cannot break the system,” she said nervously.

She looked more hopeful when the conversation switched to the new wing of the museum which staff hope will attract more visitors.

Whether it will bring back Marinika remains to be seen.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Kazakhstan’s KMG EP revenues drop

APRIL 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s state-owned energy company KMG EP said its revenues for Q1 2016 were nearly 50% lower in US dollar terms than in Q1 2015, highlighting the impact of the depreciation of the tenge on Kazakh businesses. KMG EP data is a good indicator of the overall health of Kazakhstan’s state owned energy company Kazmunaigas, a main driver of the Kazakh economy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Banking activity drops in Georgia

APRIL 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Data from Georgia’s Central Bank showed savings held in Georgian banks dropped by 2.4% between February and March. At the end of March, Georgia’s commercial banks held 24.7b lari, a drop of 800m lari. This is the lowest savings level since November last year. The Central Bank is concerned that inflation has slowed. Like the rest of the region, Georgia has been vulnerable to a fall in its lari currency.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)