JULY 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – TALCO, Tajikistan’s aluminium smelter and its most important industrial asset, cut production by nearly 50% in the first half of the year to 61,100 tonnes because of a fall in demand, media reported quoting an official. TALCO is the mainstay of Tajikistan’s economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kyrgyzstan sentenced former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev to life in prison for ordering soldiers to fire at street demonstrations in 2010. The sentence is largely symbolic as Bakiyev fled Kyrgyzstan in 2010 and now lives in Minsk.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – There was a very strong sense of déjà vu around an official Turkmen government announcement this month. Media reported that the Turkmen government had announced that it would build a statue to the current president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.
When he took over the presidency in 2007 from Saparmurat Niyazov, the first president of post-Soviet Turkmenistan, one of his first stated actions with to dismantle the personality cult his predecessor had built up. This included a gold statue of Niyazov built on an enormous plinth in the centre of Ashgabat.
International observers also cheered when he started to open Turkmenistan up to foreign investment. It is now one of the region’s major gas producers, a position it should strengthen further over the next few years.
There have, though, been increasingly strong signals that Mr Berdymukhamedov also wants to build up a personality cult of his own and that worried observers.
He has been shown on state television berating hapless officials, he makes sure that he wins Turkmenistan’s most important horse race each year and now, it appears, he has authorised a statue of himself.
Foreign minister Kasymkuly Babayev was shown on state television giving a tour of the construction site to Mr Berdymukahmedov. He addressed Mr Berdymukhamedov by his preferred moniker of Arkadag, or Protector.
“In the name of the people of the country, of the leaders of (state) structures, (we) appeal to the head of state to decide to establish on one of the beautiful corners of Turkmenistan’s capital, a monument to President Arkadag,” media quoted him as saying. This all sounds very familiar.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has, arguably, the world’s most experienced football referee. Ravshan Irmatov, 36, made history by taking charge of his ninth World Cup game, a record, at the quarter-final between the Netherlands and Costa Rica. Uzbekistan’s national football team has never qualified for the World Cup finals.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 1-6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan turned itself into an international windsurfing destination for a week when the world’s top racers converged on the Caspian Sea. Like other former Soviet states, Turkmenistan is looking to promote itself. Earlier this year it announced that it had secured a stage of the global windsurfing series.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Moscow arrested one of Armenia’s richest men as he returned from Monaco and charged him with links to Russian mafia, media reported.
The arrest of Levon Hayrapetian, 65, and the subsequent trial, may shed light on murky connections between some of Armenia’s rich and organised crime. It also drew anger from Nagorno-Karabakh, where Mr Hayrapetian has supported Armenian rebels against Azerbaijani forces. Mr Hayrapetian is a native of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Bizarrely, 674 couples that Mr Hayrapetian organised a mass marriage ceremony for in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2008 called for his release.
“Thanks to Hayrapetian’s sponsorship of the mass wedding, hundreds of families were formed in Artsakh, and in the last six years, around 1,200 children have been born,” they said in a joint statement quoted by the media.
“Being well aware of Levon Hayrapetian’s high human values, we are convinced that the accusations against him are groundless.”
Artsakh is the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh.
Mr Hayrapetian is accused of having links to the Russian crime boss Sergei Finagin. He was charged with money laundering and embezzlement on July 24.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh officials travelled to Bishkek to patch up their differences before Kyrgyzstan’s expected entry into the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia in 2015.
The meeting, attended by Kazakh deputy PM Bakitzhan Sagyntayev and Kyrgyz PM Djoomart Otorbayev ended positively with Kazakhstan pledging up to $200m in grants for Kyrgyzstan’s entry into the Union and discussing a possible electricity-for-water swap this winter.
But relations between the two sides have been unusually thorny in recent months.
Since April 14, Kazakh Customs Officials have been holding up wagons carrying petrol from the Russian energy giant Rosneft to Kyrgyzstan. Kazakh officials say they are simply complying with a government ruling banning all petrol exports from Kazakhstan. Kyrgyz officials have said that they are being obtuse.
Kazakh and Russian firms are expected to further dominate Kyrgyzstan’s domestic economy when Bishkek becomes a member of the Customs Union, which is morphing into the Eurasia Economic Union, either at the end of this year or the start of next year.
The Customs Union/Eurasian Economic Union will harmonise trade customs procedures and increase tariffs against non-members such as China. This all increases Kyrgyzstan’s reliance on Kazakhstan, making this week’s meeting even more important.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kairat Kelimbetov, the Kazakh Central Bank chief, announced new measures to strengthen Kazakhstan’s banking sector. He said that from 2016, banks will have to hold capital of $30b and from 2017 $50b. Kazakhstan has been trying to protect its finance sector from future economic shocks and weed out the smaller banks.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tashkent reportedly sentenced to jail 13 associates of Gulnara Karimov, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov.
The prison terms for the 13 people severely damage Ms Karimova and will virtually end any hopes she may have harboured of succeeding her father. She had been touted as a potential successor but her position has been steadily undermined over the past year by rivals.
Ms Karimova has not been seen in public for several months. Her London-based son has said that she is under house arrest in Tashkent.
Among those sentenced to jail for tax evasion and money laundering were Ms Karimova’s alleged boyfriend Rustam Madumarov and Gayane Avakyan. Ms Avakyan is an ethnic Armenian and one of Ms Karimova’s most loyal associates. She has been implicated in a major money laundering case involving Swedish-Finnish telecoms company TeliaSonera in 2007.
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(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Italian cyclist Vincenzo Nibali won the Tour de France, cycling’s greatest prize, for the Kazakhstan- sponsored Team Astana. By winning the Tour de France, Mr Nibali has guaranteed Kazakhstan major publicity. Kazakhstan has now said it wants to host the start of the Tour de France before 2020.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)