AUG. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Tajikistan detained two Russian soldiers for the suspected murder of a Tajik taxi driver in Dushanbe, media reported. Russia maintains a major military base, its largest overseas base, in the Pamir Mountains. If the soldiers are formally accused of killing the taxi driver, it could dampen important bilateral relations.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Newly elected Turkish president, Tayyip Erdogan, travelled to Azerbaijan on a two-day trip to meet with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, a key ally. It was Mr Erdogan’s second trip abroad as president, underlining the importance of the Turkey-Azerbaijan axis.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Officials in Armenia have been mounting a PR campaign to persuade people that sanctions on Russia and their negative effect on its economy will not stop the country joining its Customs Union. Joining the Russia-led Customs Union has become a major policy plank for Armenia’s leaders.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s authorities are piling pressure on former president Mikheil Saakashvili by asking Interpol to issue a so-called Red Notice for his arrest, media reported. A Red Notice doesn’t force countries to arrest Mr Saakashvili but it pushes his profile to the top of the wanted list.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Depicting a more modern, technologically advanced side of Kazakhstan, officials have unveiled a plan to build a plant near Karaganda that will produce food for astronauts based on mare’s milk. Toregeldy Sharmanov, head of the Kazakh Academy of Nutrition, told media that mare’s milk was particularly nutritious.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan is on the brink of a Russian-fuelled petrol crisis according to independent news outlet Avesta.tj.
Unnamed sources told Avesta.tj that a collective of 25 Tajik fuel importers had written to President Emomali Rakhmon to tell him that he needed to buy extra fuel supplies to avoid potentially destructive price hikes. The problem, they said, was export restrictions at the Russian refineries where Tajikistan gets its fuel.
The letter said that supplies of A-92 petrol, imported from Russia, and other types of fuel, may be exhausted by mid-September unless he intervenes to ensure previous levels of supply. Apparently the letter attributes the restrictions to parallel shortages in energy rich Russia. Kyrgyzstan is also hurting. Petrol prices in Tajikistan’s northern neighbour have risen by 13.8% in some parts of the country over an eight month period.
Officially, according to the head of the Kyrgyz Oil Traders association, the reason for the restrictions is that multiple refineries in Russia are undergoing repairs simultaneously.
Unofficially, it’s more likely that sanctions imposed on Russia for its actions in Ukraine are biting.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has appointed a Tajik as one of its leaders, media reported. Officials in Tajikistan said the appointment to ISIL, which has beheaded Western journalists, may increase the number of disenfranchised Tajiks heading to fight for it.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Under an amnesty declared earlier this year by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, people can legalise companies and cash held offshore without being taxed over the next 12 months, media reported. Mr Nazarbayev wants to bring an estimated $10b into the economy through the amnesty.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian officials have said that they will ask for NATO membership at its summit in Wales starting on Sept. 4, media reported. Fighting in Ukraine and the expansion of NATO is top of the agenda at the meeting in Wales. Georgia has been pushing for NATO membership for the last few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
ALMATY/Kazakhstan, SEPT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The conversation, and the coffee, flowed freely in this café in the centre of Kazakhstan’s financial capital that is popular with students and intelligentsia types. The language, too, was fluid and the speakers switch causally between Kazakh and English.
Amantai, a 21-year old student, had been listening to the conversation.
“I’ve heard you guys speak interchangeably in Kazakh and English,” he said. “You haven’t used a single word of Russian.”
Russian didn’t have a place at this table of young, educated Kazakhs. In the wider context, as Kazakhs grow more aware of their statehood and less attached to the notion of the Soviet Union, the Russian language is being displaced.
Amantai was from a village outside of Almaty. He had moved to study economics at the Kazakh- British Technical University. He had studied hard to reach the level of English that was required to enroll.
Even though for Amantai Kazakh was not necessary to study economics he still preferred to use it in public over Russian.
Another of the young Kazakh men sitting around the table explained.
“It’s up to the new generation to turn our mother tongue into a language that can be spoken in every instance of one’s life,” he said.
A decade ago this scene would not have unfolded in Almaty. Until recently Russian dominated Kazakhstan’s business and political elite. Kazakh was spoken just by villagers and not in the cities.
That, though, has changed with President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s various nation building schemes and with the influx of people to Almaty and other cities.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)