Category Archives: Uncategorised

Turkmen sex workers in India

DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in India arrested three women, two from Turkmenistan and one from Uzbekistan, for being sex workers, the Times of India newspaper reported.

The newspaper reported that the number of women arrested from Central Asia who have been sex workers has increased over the past few years.

One of the Turkmen girls arrested said she had moved to Delhi four years ago to work as a translator but that sex work was far better paid. She said that she had been sent to work in different cities in India by middlemen.

India has become something of a magnet for women who end up either in the sex trade or adult slavery and Central Asia is a particularly strong recruiting ground.

“Experts estimate that millions of women and children are victims of sex trafficking in India,” a US State Department report this year said.

“A large number of Nepali, Afghan, and Bangladeshi females the majority of whom are children aged nine to 14 years old and women and girls from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, and Uganda are

also subjected to sex trafficking in India.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Kazakh President wants Russia sanctions cut

DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a press conference in Astana with visiting French president Francois Hollande, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev called on the West to relax sanctions against Russia imposed for its alleged support of rebel forces in the east of the country. The sanctions on Russia have had a knock-on effect on Central Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan opened railway to Iran

DEC. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The presidents of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Iran formally opened a railway line that will connect the three countries. At the event in Ashgabat, the leaders said that the railway line would increase trade between Central Asia and Iran and help ignite a new north-south Silk Road.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

FDI jumps in Georgia

DEC. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Georgia, vital for its economy, soared to $508m in the third quarter of 2014, its highest quarterly intake for six years.

The data from Georgia’s national statistics office also showed that China had contributed $149m, 29% of the total. This is double China’s previous record FDI injection in Georgia. By way of comparison, the entire quarterly FDI for Georgia in Q2 2014 was $151m.

These figures are good news for Georgia but it has to tread carefully.

Clearly an increase in FDI is good. Georgia’s economy is reliant on FDI as a major source of income. When Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in 2008, FDI dried up, hurting the economy.

But an influx of Chinese money poses new problems and new strains. China has opened a cultural office in Tbilisi and Southern China Airline now offers direct flights to Urumuqi in the west of the country.

Chinese companies, though, often prefer to fly in workers from China rather than hire local workers, straining relations with local communities.

Of course, Georgian policymakers will welcome the rise in Chinese investment. They must also manage it carefully.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Kazakh city to build a ring road

DEC. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan unveiled a project to build a six-lane 66km ring-road around Almaty which they hope will both ease congestion in the city and provide a new financing model for major infrastructure projects.

The FT reported that the number of cars in Almaty has exploded by 50% in the last five years. Anybody walking around its choked-up streets at rush hour will be able to taste the exhaust fumes in the air.

With support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Kazakhstan has launched a plan to raise $680m in what has been dubbed its first internationally-tendered public-private partnership scheme.

Importantly, as the EBRD’s infrastructure chief, Thomas Meier, said the project is a test of Kazakhstan’s attractiveness and in particular law changes made this year. Most important of these was that any disputes concerning infrastructure developments would be settled by international arbitration.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)

Uzbekistan creates job scheme for migrants

NOV. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek government is creating a job programme for migrants returning from Russia, official media reported. Uzbek media must be regarded with scepticism but, with news of its job-creation scheme, perhaps the government is acknowledging a downturn in Russia’s economy and its knock-on effects.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

Kazakh President wants Turkmenistan in trade zone

DEC. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In talks ahead of a ceremony to mark the inauguration of a train line running from Kazakhstan to Iran via Turkmenistan, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev urged his Turkmen counterpart, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, to join the CIS Free Trade zone. Mr Berdymuakhamedov has been opening Turkmenistan to global trade.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

The myth of radical Islam in Central Asia

LONDON/United Kingdom, DEC. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Western security analysts over-hype the impact of radical Islam on Central Asia, a new paper by two academics said.

The paper, published by the London-based think tank Chatham House and written by John Heathershaw of Exeter University and David Montgomery of Pittsburgh University, said that there were six key areas where myths on the impact of radical Islam had been wrongly propagated.

There wrongly propagated myths were: There is a post-Soviet Islamic revival; to Islamicise is to radicalise; authoritarianism and poverty cause radicalisation; underground Muslim groups are radical; radical Muslim groups are globally networked; political Islam opposes the secular state.

“The paper demonstrates that while the six claims are made consistently in secular security discourse (with one exception) they are not justified in practice,” Mr Heathershaw and Mr Montgomery wrote.

The paper chose to study reports written by the respected Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) over the last five years. The paper uses ICG reports because it, rightly, described the ICG as the most consistent and serious on the region.

“Once one sees through the myth of post-Soviet Muslim radicalization, it is possible to see that there is nothing essential to former Soviet Central Asia that generates religious radicalisation,” the report said.

This research is important because the spectre of Muslim radicalism is used so often in the discourse by leaders in Central Asia to justify clamp-downs in human rights and media. It also forms, as this paper describes, an important part of the prism through which the West views Central Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

Inflation rises in Kazakhstan, again

DEC. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Inflation in Kazakhstan is beginning to edge up to the psychologically important double digit zone. The Kazakh statistics committee said prices rose by 0.7% in November after a 0.5% increase in October.

This is a precarious position for the Kazakh Central Bank. Annualised inflation already measures 7.6%. It won’t be long, if the current trend continues, until it hits 10%.

The problems are two two-fold and well-known — Russia and the drop in the price of oil.

These two issues have combined to produce something of an economic storm for Kazakhstan. And its options are limited. The Central Bank devalued — without warning — its tenge currency by 20% in February. For its currency to retain any credibility, it has had to pledge to protect it from further devaluation.

There is already a lot of economic uncertainty in Kazakhstan. Rising inflation is adding to that.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

Armenian lecturers quit

DEC. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Roughly 120 university lecturers in Armenia born since 1974 have quit their jobs because of government plans to change the pension system, the London-based NGO Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) said. IWPR said this equalled about a quarter of the total number of university academics under the age of 45 in Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)