Category Archives: Uncategorised

Workers strike in west Kazakhstan

JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Workers at an oil services company that supplies equipment to the Kashagan oil project in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea have gone on strike, media reported.

Since a strike by oil workers in west Kazakhstan ended in 2011 in clashes with police and 15 people being killed, the authorities have been ultra-sensitive to industrial action, so news that workers have walked out of Tuplar Energy Serves Company (TESCO) complaining of late salary payments will frustrate them.

TESCO have responded that their main client, the Australian company WorleyParsons hasn’t paid their invoices on time. WorleyParsons hasn’t commented.

The importance of this latest strike action in west Kazakhstan is not who is ultimately responsibly, no doubt lawyers will thrash this out, but the impact on the local community. If people aren’t working and aren’t being paid that means less cash in the local economy, increasing frustration and resentment of the increasingly rich political elite.

One disgruntled worker told the lada.kz news website: “I came here to work and establish a family, now I can’t find another job, the company hasn’t paid me for six months and the banks are pressuring me about my mortgage.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Demonstrations continue in Kyrgyzstan

JUNE 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 100 people demonstrated in front of the Jalal-Abad regional administration headquarters in the town of Aksy in south Kyrgyzstan to demand the resignation of the governor, who they accuse of corruption. Aksy is significant as a demonstration there in 2005 triggered a revolution.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Bread price rises in Kazakh city

JUNE 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of a loaf of bread has increased in Pavlodar, north Kazakhstan, to 60 tenge from 47 tenge, media reported. The price rise is just the latest in Kazakhstan. Creeping inflation, triggered by supply line problems and utility price rises, threaten to cause social tension.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Tajikistan and Pakistan agree on CASA- 1000

JUNE 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan and Pakistan have agreed on a price for electricity, a diplomatic source told Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper, clearing a major obstacle for the CASA-1000 project. CASA envisages Tajikistan supplying Pakistan with electricity. Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif visited Dushanbe earlier this month.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Korea wins Turkmen contract

JUNE 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a trip to Ashgabat by South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov awarded a $4b contract to build gas processing plants to South Korea’s LG and Hyundai. Ms Geun-hye has been on a week-long tour of Central Asia that has taken in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan too.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

NATO proposes cooperation to Georgia

JUNE 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the Western military alliance would propose closer cooperation with Georgia but would not offer it the full membership that it so desperately craves, media reported. NATO holds its AGM in Cardiff in September.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Uzbek President’s daughter under house arrest

JUNE 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The 21-year-old son of Gulnara Karimova, Islam Karimov, confirmed in an interview with Russian TV that his mother and sister are under house arrest in Tashkent.

Mr Karimov, who shares the same name as his grandfather Uzbek President Islam Karimov, is a student at Oxford University.

He said that, contrary to previous reports, his grandfather is not behind the detention of his mother.

“This is happening behind his back,” he told REN-TV. “Our enemies could have misrepresented the facts when briefing him.”

Mr Karimov’s version of events are very clear, then. He said that the family’s enemies are trying to enflame a family rift.

The interview is important because it gives an insider’s view on the apparent demise of Ms Karimova. She has not been heard of or seen since February when security agents apparently raided her apartment. Her closest business associates have apparently been charged with various business misdemeanours.

Over the past year Ms Karimova has had a spectacular fall from power. She controlled many of the country’s biggest businesses and lived a glamorous life as a fashion designer and pop star. Slowly these have been stripped away from her.

Information for outsiders has been scant, although it appears that she is the victims of inter-clan rivalries. One of her biggest enemies was said to be Rustam Inoyatov, head of the Uzbek security services.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Tajikistan arrests researcher

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik officials arrested Alexander Sodiqov, a 31-year old Tajik academic affiliated to the University of Toronto in Canada, and accused him of spying.

Mr Sodiqov was carrying out research in the Tajikistan’s restive Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) when Tajik security agents detained him.

Tajik officials are traditionally jittery about anyone asking awkward questions in GBAO, where Dushanbe’s authority is weak. Badakhshanis fought against government forces during a five-year civil war in the mid-1990s that President Emomali Rakhmon, eventually won.

Ever since, though, peace has been fragile. In July 2012, around 50 people died in fighting when the authorities tried to arrest a local chief who they accused of drug trafficking. Earlier this year more violence killed three people in Khorog, the regional capital and the scene of Mr Sodiqov.

Human rights groups and the British and Canadian governments have all said they are concerned about Mr Sodiqov’s well-being.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Sargsyan visits Georgia

JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan concluded a two day trip to Tbilisi by saying the two countries’ different strategies towards Russia and the EU could strengthen their relations. Georgia has chosen closer ties to the EU while Armenia has looked to Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Doctors’ salaries to rise in Kazakhstan

JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Doctors and nurses will receive a 28% salary rise next year, media quoted health minister Salidat Kairbekova as saying. Medical workers have long complained that they are underpaid, especially since a 20% devaluation of the tenge this year. Nurses in Kazakhstan are currently paid $436/month; doctors $620/month.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)