Category Archives: Uncategorised

Russian soldier murders Armenian family

>>Murders trigger anger at Russian base>>

JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Russian soldier serving at Russia’s vast military base at Gyumri in Armenia murdered six members of a family and went on the run before being captured, media reported.

The killings have raised tension around the base with dozens of demonstrators reportedly calling for an apology from the base commander.

Gyumri is one of Russia’s largest overseas bases with about 3,000 soldiers stationed there. Armenia’s government views it as an important counterbalance to increasing Azerbaijani military dominance in the region.

Russian officials said that the soldier, named as Private Valery Permyakov, had been captured trying to cross into Turkey a few hours after the murders. No reason for the murders has been given.

According to officials, Permyakov shot dead six members of a local family. The only survivor was a six-month-old boy who was stabbed.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Tajikistan imprisons opposition lawyer

JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tajikistan sentenced one of the country’s most prominent lawyers to nine years in jail for bribery and fraud.

Supporters of Sukhrat Kudratov, the jailed lawyer, said that his real crime was to defend opposition activist and former government official Zaid Saidov in 2013. Saidov was jailed for corruption as well as polygamy.

Certainly the case against Kudratov seems weak and the punishment meted out excessive.

On twitter, Steve Swerdlow of the New York-based Human Rights Watch said: “Jailing of Shurat Kudratov is a serious setback for the freedom of expression and the independent legal profession in Tajikistan.”

As well as being a high profile lawyer prepared to take on human rights cases that others would ignore, Kudratov was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan, an opposition party. His name was on their list of candidates for a parliamentary election in March.

Human rights and democracy groups have long criticised Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon for his authoritarian policies. He has been Tajik president since the end of a civil war in the mid-1990s.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Coca-Cola to build Dushanbe factory

JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan has given the go-ahead for Turkish Coca-Cola Icecek, which produces and distributes Coca-Cola products across Central Asia, to build its first bottling plant in Dushanbe, media reported. The project will cost $50m and generate up to 500 new jobs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Georgian PM joins Paris rally

JAN. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Irakli Garbashvili flew to Paris to join other world leaders at a unity rally three days after attacks by Islamic extremists killed 17 people in the French capital. Mr Garbashvili was the only head of government from C.Asia and the S.Caucasus to attend.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015

Kazakh property market shrinks

>>Currency devaluation inflated early data>>

JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The number of property deals in Kazakhstan dropped by over 13% last year, the State Statistics Committee data showed, more evidence of a downturn in the economy.

The biggest drops in the number of property transactions were in North Kazakhstan — a fall of 25% in the number of property deals in 2014 compared to 2013 — and the Akmola, Almaty and Karaganda regions which all had a fall of around 20%.

Only some of the western regions, experiencing something of an oil boom, enjoyed a small increase in the property market in 2014.

This is all bad news for Kazakhstan which is trying to keep its tenge currency strong despite a fall in the price of oil and a drop in the value of the Russian rouble.

Earlier, the shrink in Kazakhstan’s property market had been disguised by figures which showed that the value of the deals had actually increased by over 10% in 2014. A currency devaluation of 20% in February 2014 inflated the value of transactions in the Kazakh market.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Tajikistan strengthens security along Afghan border

JAN. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s security services are constructing a new base on the border with Afghanistan to oppose an apparent build-up of Taliban forces, media reported. Central Asian government have worried that the Taliban is preparing an assault once NATO leaves Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Car imports from Russia to Kazakhstan rise

JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car imports to Kazakhstan from Russia have jumped in the past two months to 2,859 from 2,005 during the same period in 2013, Kazakh media reported quoting government officials. The upturn is linked to the currency discrepancies. The rouble has nose-dived but the Kazakh Central Bank has kept the tenge strong.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

WHO praises new cigarette laws in Kyrgyzstan

>>Laws important in country with little formal health education>>

JAN. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Health Organisation (WHO) is lauding a move by Kyrgyzstan to increase tax on cigarettes and to make it law to publish garish images of the damage smoking can to people’s health on packets.

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament ratified the news laws at the end of last year, WHO said. The laws will equalise the tax on cigarettes with neighbouring Kazakhstan.

“Tobacco taxes for different types of tobacco will increase as of 2015 and are expected to increase to the level of tobacco taxes in the neighbouring Kazakhstan,” WHO said in its statement.

“As of 2014, tobacco taxes in Kyrgyzstan are 2-1/2 to 12 times lower than in Kazakhstan.”

The pictures that will be carried on cigarette boxes from 2016 show how smoking gives people cancer and other diseases.

This is an important step. Tightening regulations on smoking and educating the general public on the dangers of smoking is seen as a civilising step and a marker of a country’s development.

For Kyrgyzstan, where cigarettes appear to be clamped to the lips of men walking down a street and the purple fog of tobacco smoke fugs many bars, this is a big step indeed. Public health is often overlooked in Kyrgyzstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Armenia, Azerbaijan armies clash around N-K

JAN. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing two of its soldiers along the border to the dispute region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Separatists backed by Armenia control Nagorno-Karabakh but peace, or a relative peace, is only held by a 1994 UN-brokered ceasefire. There are weekly shootings along the border.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Uzbekistan increases security along border

JAN. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek Border Guard Service has beefed up its units along its frontier with Afghanistan, citing intelligence that the Taliban was mustering its forces, although some analysts and Afghan security officials questioned the level of the threat.

Central Asian governments have said that the withdrawal of NATO from Afghanistan will worsen its own border security.

Two weeks ago, Zamir Kabulov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan said that the Taliban was planning a wide offensive on Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in April.

Even with the Russian warning and the Uzbek military build-up, the Tajik-language service of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quoted Afghan general Abdusabur Nusrati refuting reports of the Taliban build-up.

An Uzbek analyst who declined to be named was also sceptical over just how acute the Taliban threat was.

Instead he suggested that the move may be linked to the up and coming presidential election set for March 29. He said that the security issue may play into President Islam Karimov’s image as the tough man of Uzbekistan.

“The country is preparing for presidential elections in only three months,” he said. “To my mind this statements is another indication that he is eyeing another bid as president.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)