MARCH 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The government of the Karaganda region has said that ArcelorMittal’s temporary move to knock 25% off its workers’ wages at its steel plant in Temirtau last month was illegal, the Tengrinews website reported. It has filed a lawsuit against ArcelorMittal, one of Kazakhstan’s biggest foreign investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev declared he would run in a presidential election set for April 25.
His announcement ended speculation generated last week when he appeared to suggest this it was time for change.
Instead, live at a conference held by his Nur Otan party, Mr Nazarbayev declared that he would look to extend his 26-year-long reign over Kazakhstan.
“There is no bigger reward or happiness than to have the trust of my nation,” he said. “This inspires and invigorates me, and this is why I look youngish.”
Mr Nazarbayev is 74-years-old and has run Kazakhstan since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
He called an early presidential election this month after his supporters asked him to underline his authority during an increasingly turbulent economic time.
But succession issues are still at the forefront of Kazakhstan-watchers agenda because only last week Mr Nazarbayev appeared to suggest that he may call it a day.
“I have run Kazakhstan for many years already, I stood at the cradle of its independence, so maybe it was time to ‘change stage’, as they say in a theatre,” he said in televised remarks on March 8.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Bulletin) – Kazakhstan banned the import of light oil products from Russia for 45 days from March 5 . The measure was brought in to stem the flow of Russian oil products, made cheaper by the fall in the value of the rouble, and to protect jobs and business at Kazakh refineries.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 6 2015 (The Bulletin) – A military court in Kazakhstan sentenced Nurlan Zholamanov, the former head of Kazakhstan’s border forces, to 11 years in prison for corruption. Zholamanov’s imprisonment is one of the biggest cases in the government’s high-profile anti-corruption drive.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 10 2015 (The Bulletin) – Police in Kazakhstan detained Saken Baikenov, who campaigned against Russian Proton rocket launches from the Baikonur station, for hate crimes. Proton rockets, which are used for commercial missions, have exploded and polluted the countryside. Rights groups have questioned Kazakhstan’s commitment to free speech.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Bulletin) – The highest court in France rejected an appeal by lawyers of former Kazakh opposition figure Mukhtar Ablyazov against his extradition to either Ukraine or Russia . This decision paves the way for a governmental decree to extradite Ablyazov who is wanted by Kazakhstan on various charges.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 6 2015 (The Bulletin) – At a Senate hearing in Astana, chairman of the ministry of finance’s revenue committee, Daulet Yergozhin, said the country was going to impose new measures against off-shoring cash.
This is important — if new legislation actually appears — as the issue of Kazakhstan’s wealthy getting their cash out of the country while poorer sections of the population suffer during an economic downturn could turn political.
A study published last month by Alexander Cooley and Jason Sharman, two academics, analysed the channels through which the Kazakh elite amassed “spectacular fortunes” in Western financial centres.
Mr Yergozhin wasn’t responding to these accusations. Instead he said Kazakhstan was working with Switzerland and Liechtenstein to reduce the flow of capital out of the country.
“Already this year, we are planning to put barriers against the movement of capital [to offshore locations] and we will start seeing the results of this policy early next year,” media quoted him as saying.
Kazakhstan has been looking was to bring capital back into the country. Last year it introduced an amnesty for people which repatriated cash. It has said that this amnesty has so far attracted $1b back into Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
FEB. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – KAZ Minerals, the London-listed Kazakh copper miner, recorded a net loss of £2.4b last year, mainly due to a $2.1b write-off from discontinued operations. KAZ Minerals, formerly called Kazakhmys, has close links with the Kazakh elite.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
FEB. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) -The International Cycling Union accused Team Astana of misleading it over anti-doping policies and called for its competition license to be withdrawn. Team Astana has near official backing in Kazakhstan and wears the national colours. A Team Astana rider won the 2014 Tour de France but other riders have failed drugs tests.
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(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)
MARCH 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s foreign minister Erlan Idrissov flew to Brussels for a meeting with the EU where both sides committed to deepening their partnerships. The EU’s backing is important for Kazakhstan because of the growing stigma in the West over former Soviet countries’ ties to Russia.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 221, published on March 4 2015)