Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakh police arrested EXPO 2017 chief

JUNE 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Kazakhstan arrested on corruption charges Talgat Yermegiyayev, two days after he had quit as the chairman of the company organising President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s EXPO-217 extravaganza.

The arrest will be a major embarrassment to Mr Nazarbayev who has pledged to crackdown on corruption in Kazakhstan.

Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, the mayor of Astana, was quickly given the job of heading EXPO- 2017.

For Mr Yermegiyayev, a powerful businessmen with links to the top of the Kazakh elite, his arrest marks a very heavy fall from grace.

Alongside him, police also arrested Kazhymurat Usenov on embezzlement charges. Mr Usenov was in charge of much of the construction work for EXPO-2017 in Astana.

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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

India will reject Kazakh Abai stake

JUNE 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – India will reject a 25% stake in the Abai oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, Indian sources told the Economic Times newspaper. Kazakhstan had offered India the stake in the untapped field after it chose China over India as a shareholder in the Kashagan oil field in 2013.

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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

Kyrgyz MPs want to impose gold export tax

JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – MPs in Kyrgyzstan’s parliament have called for the introduction of a new tax on gold exports, media reported, pitting themselves, once again, against the country’s largest foreign investor.

The Kumtor gold east of the country is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial asset and parliamentarians said that its exports needed to be targeted to raise extra revenue for the national budget.

Centerra Gold, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, owns Kumtor. The Kyrgyz government is a minority owner in Centerra. It has been fighting to increase its stake in the company and to gain more control over Kumtor itself. Earlier this year, a Kyrgyz PM resigned after failing to win concessions.

Mirlan Bakirov, an MP for the opposition Onuguu (Progress) party, proposed a 20% gold export tax to be instated at the beginning of 2016, while Alla Izmalkova of the Social Democratic Party argued for a similar tariff to start in 2018.

Official data showed that in 2014, Kyrgyzstan exported 85,000 tonnes of gold, an increase of around 36% from mine in the 2013.

But the issue of taxing gold exports has been passing around the Kyrgyz parliament for years without ever being resolved.

Earlier in June, Kozhobek Ryspayev, member of the Committee on Fuel and Energy, said an export tax would harm the mining industry. Valentin Bogdetsky, member of the Board of the Kyrgyz Mining Association similarly stated: “The imposition of an export duty on gold is not a solution to the problems between the industry and the government.”

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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

Uzbek economic data defies downturn

JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek legislation rubber- stamped the government’s report on fulfilling the 2014 and 2015 budget which reported GDP growth of 8.1% despite a general downturn in economic conditions across the region.

The glowing numbers appear at odds with other economic indicators leaking out of the country.

According to analysts interviewed by the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Uzbek service, brewing financial trouble, triggered by the government’s failure to pay salaries, pensions and stipends over the last several months could spark turmoil.

The Uzbek economy has been shrinking over the last couple years caused by falling global oil prices, a boycott of Uzbek cotton and diminishing remittances from Uzbek labour migrants in Russia as predicted by the World Bank. The World Bank has said that Uzbekistan’s economy will shrink further in 2015-16.

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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

Tajik opposition leader moves into exile

JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Muhiddin Kabiri, leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party, is moving into self-imposed exile over fears that he will be targeted and imprisoned in a government clampdown in Tajikistan, he told Eurasinet.org in an interview. The Islamic Renaissance Party is Tajikistan’s main opposition party but has been increasingly marginalised.

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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

Turkmenistan extends military draft

JUNE 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has extended its military draft, websites reported, perhaps to bolster units along the increasingly tense border with Afghanistan.

“According to incoming reports, the majority of young men, who have been recently drafted in Lebap and Balkan velayats, will be sent to the military units based in Kushka, i.e. near the Turkmen-Afghan border,” the website reported.

Senior military officials have previously said that they need to boost the number of soldiers in the army to counter perceived threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Last year reports from the border said that Turkmen army units clashed with Taliban units in a number of skirmishes. This year, though, reports from the border of military activity have been much reduced.

Even so, the Chronicles of Turkmenistan website reported that the Turkmen military has extended the draft for con- scripts to July 25 from the end of June.

The countries that border Afghanistan — Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan — have been warning that the Taliban is preparing to move to Central Asia.

Russia has supported this assessment and sent various military advisers to the region as well as offering to boost its military presence along the border.

But many Western analysts have scorned this viewpoint and said instead that the narrative has been designed to bolster strict military and authoritarian rule in the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

UN criticises Kazakhstan on freedoms

JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Maina Kiai, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, said the freedom to assemble and freedom of expression were compromised in Kazakhstan. Mr Kiai was reporting on a trip he made to Kazakhstan in January.

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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)

Georgians rally against harsh marijuana laws

TBILISI/GEORGIA, JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — To David Gabunia, a well-known Georgian musician, it just doesn’t make sense.

“When you cut down gorgeous big old trees, they let you get away with it,” he said referring to a tree cutting programme by Tbilisi city council. “But when you take a small weed and smoke it, they’ll put you in jail for many years.”

And he’s not alone in pondering this apparent quandary.

Several thousand people across Georgia joined demonstrations and signed online petitions on June 2 calling for the government to reduce harsh laws governing marijuana use.

The largest protest was in Tbilisi, where several hundred people attended a protest in the centre of the city.

Georgia has a zero tolerance drug policy. Drug use is an administrative offence with fines up to 500 lari ($225) for first time offenders and a criminal offence with one year imprisonment for repeat offenders. Carrying small quantities of illegal substances, such as marijuana, can mean prison sentences of between 11 and 20 years, comparable to rape, human trafficking and murder.

Marijuana grows naturally in Georgia, and the Abkhazia version, from the west of the country, is particularly highly thought of. But in the dark days of 1990s post-independent Georgia, society’s view of drugs and their users changed and a zero tolerance policy was introduced.

Since 2013, though, rallies have been organised asking the government to rethink its policies on marijuana. But not everyone is convinced. The powerful Georgian Orthodox Church is staunchly against marijuana and PM Irakli Garibashili also said a couple of days after the rallies that decriminalisation would have disastrous consequences.

“This is an issue of principle, and we are obliged to realise its deplorable consequences. I am personally completely, categorically against it,” he said on his Facebook page.

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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)

Chinese vice-president to visit Armenia

JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chen Changzhi, vice-president of China’s influential National People’s Congress, met Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan in Yerevan highlighting China’s growing interest in Armenia and the wider South Caucasus region.

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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)

Georgian Poti Port to increase in size

JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – APM Terminals plans to increase the size and depth of its port at Poti, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, media quoted its deputy managing director Joseph Crowley as saying at a conference. Mr Crowley said APM wanted to add two more deep-water berths to the port, boosting its capacity.

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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)