JUNE 15 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh PM Karim Massimov said that Russia would be allowed to continue using the Baikonur launch site in the south of the country to send rockets into space. Kazakhstan had suspended launches from Baikonur because of a row over debris from space rockets littering areas in northern Kazakhstan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 093, published on June 22 2012)
JUNE 19 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Eleven Kazakh army conscripts deserted their outpost on the border with China, allegedly because of bullying, media reported. The conscripts were found the next day but this was the second recent incident concerning the Kazakh military on the Chinese border. In May, 14 soldiers were murdered in their outpost.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 093, published on June 22 2012)
JUNE 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in western Kazakhstan convicted 34 people of instigating a riot that killed 15 people in the town of Zhanaozen in December. The trial was one of the most politically sensitive in Kazakhstan’s post- Soviet history. Of the 34 people convicted, 13 were sent to prison.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 091, published on June 8 2012)
JUNE 6 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – China had a gift for its Central Asia partners who attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Beijing on June 7.
It had set up a new $10b fund through its Export-Import Bank to loan to its neighbours. Of course there are strings attached and the fund will buy China yet more impact in the region.
It already has a huge amount of clout, much of the region’s energy resources heads east and rarely a week passes without new deal being announced, but China still clearly wants more from Central Asia.
The first big deal announced by China from its new fund was a $1.1b loan to help pay for a refit of its refinery near Atyrau in western Kazakhstan, media reported.
Reuters published figures that showed just how deeply China has invested over the past few years. According to Kazakhstan, China has invested $15b into the country since 1991, a tenth of all foreign investment. Roughly $10b of that, though, has come since 2008 and now, according to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev about 20% of all its energy exports will flow to China.
The rest of Central Asia has also seen a massive boost in Chinese investments over the past few years, a trend that looks set to continue.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 091, published on June 8 2012)
JUNE 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – NATO’s general-secretary, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, announced that transit deals had been struck with Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to allow the Western military alliance to withdraw kit from Afghanistan across their territories. The deals cement the strategic and political importance of Central Asia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 091, published on June 8 2012)
MAY 30 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A shallow earthquake measuring 5.7 on the Richter Scale shook Almaty, 150km from the epicentre. Since then, local authorities have measured at least eight aftershocks although no serious damage has been reported. Last year a similar size earthquake panicked people living in the city.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 090, published on June 1 2012)
MAY 16 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps underlining just how important Russian President Vladimir Putin views relations with Kazakhstan, his first overseas mission in his third presidential term will be to visit Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana on May 25, media reported. Kazakhstan is part of the Eurasian Union with Russia and Belarus.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 088, published on May 18 2012)
MAY 11 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government insisted a probe into corruption at Italian energy company ENI would not slow development of its Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field. ENI is the lead company in Kashagan, one of the biggest oil finds in the past 40 years. Last week Italian prosecutors opened an investigation into ENI’s foreign deals.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 088, published on May 18 2012)
MAY 8 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sixteen people died when an overcrowded mini-bus carrying migrant workers to Russia from southern Kyrgyzstan hit an oncoming truck. The route to and from Russia is lucrative as hundreds of thousands of workers, especially from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, work in Russia. The roads, though, can be dangerous.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 087, published on May 11 2012)
MAY 2 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Other than Georgia, US-based Freedom House rated media in Central Asia and the South Caucasus as “Not Free”. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan propped up the bottom of the table, closely followed by Kazakhstan. Media freedom in Georgia, the report said, had improved in 2011.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 086, published on May 4 2012)