MAY 1 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh media rather cryptically reported that Kazakhstan intends to build 2,500km of “engineering facilities” along its borders with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. These facilities are likely to be border defences and are linked both to combating drug and human trafficking as well as Kazakhstan’s historical mistrust of its southern neighbours.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 086, published on May 4 2012)
APRIL 19 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Two men stabbed Lukpan Akhmedyarov, a reporter for an independent newspaper in Uralsk, north-west Kazakhstan, multiple times in one of the most savage attacks on a journalist in the country’s recent history. Mr Akhmedyarov survived the attempted murder.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 085, published on April 27 2012)
APRIL 23 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Kazakh court extended by 6 months a ban on Kazakhstan’s Communist Party, one of the few opposition political parties with nationwide support. The Communist Party was first banned in October for 6 months for colluding with an outlawed party. This ban covered a parliamentary election in January.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 085, published on April 27 2012)
APRIL 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Average wages in Kazakhstan were roughly $623 in February, about 18% higher than a year ago, the national statistics office reported. The increase is far higher than inflation which officially measured 7.4% in 2011. Inflation has slowed in Kazakhstan in 2012, triggering a couple of interest rate cuts.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 083, published on April 13 2012)
APRIL 3 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian forces killed a Kazakh national during a raid on suspected Islamic extremists in Dagestan, a republic in Russia’s restive North Caucasus, media reported. Links to radicals in the north Caucasus have contributed to an increasingly active Islamic extremist movement in western Kazakhstan.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 082, published on April 6 2012)
MARCH 22 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The boorish fictional character Borat continues to undermine the serious, grown-up image that Kazakhstan wants to project. Officials in Kuwait accidentally played Borat’s spoof anthem featuring lyrics about the cleanliness of Kazakh prostitutes instead of the sombre tones of the real national anthem at an international rifle shooting tournament.
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(News report from Issue No. 081, published on March 30 2012)
MARCH 29 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Aktau, west Kazakhstan, started the trial of 37 men accused of violence in a riot in December that killed 16 people. The trial is one of the most highly charged, politically and emotionally, in Kazakhstan’s recent history.
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(News report from Issue No. 081, published on March 30 2012)
MARCH 2 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in western Kazakhstan said they will charge 43 men with being involved in riots that killed at least 16 people on Dec. 16 in the town of Zhanaozen. Several police and officials have also been charged with employing excessive force and using live rounds to quell the riot.
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(News report from Issue No. 080, published on March 8 2012)
FEB. 25 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Watched and cajoled by a heavy police presence, around 250 anti-government protesters demonstrated in Almaty. There were probably three or four times more police than protesters. Local media reported smaller opposition rallies in Astana and Uralsk in the northwest.
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(News report from Issue No. 079, published on March 1 2012)
FEB. 27 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – British ministers flew to Central Asia this week to secure military exit routes from Afghanistan.
Starting in 2014 NATO wants to withdraw kit from Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, spent days in Central Asia last year hatching deals to secure the US exit.
Now the British are ramping up their effort. They plan to withdraw an estimated 11,000 containers and 3,000 vehicles from Afghanistan.
Building on low-key trips by military commanders to Central Asia last year, Philip Hammond, British minister for defence, visited Astana and Tashkent. In Kazakhstan he secured an agreement for British flights through Kazakh airspace and started talks on a land access deal.
After Astana, Mr Hammond visited the Uzbek government in Tashkent, a more controversial partner in the NATO logistics route because of its alleged human rights abuses. He left his more junior colleague Nick Harvey, minister for the Armed Forces, to journey to Bishkek, Ashgabat and Dushanbe. An indication, perhaps, of priorities.
In the 19th century British military officers played a Great Game of cat and mouse with their Russian rivals in Central Asia.
Their mission then was to impede Russia’s advance into Afghanistan and beyond to India. Britain’s new Great Game is to secure an exit for its own military from Afghanistan through Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 079, published on March 1 2012)