JULY 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gunmen shot dead two policemen in a village near the town of Aktobe in western Kazakhstan before fleeing, local media reported. The attack triggered a massive security operation which is still ongoing. In May, a suicide bomber attacked security forces in Aktobe. Analysts are worried about the rise of radical Islam in western Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 47, published on July 6 2011)
JUNE 24 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh Prosecutor-General has asked the Austrian authorities to extradite Rakhat Aliyev, President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law, media reported. Mr Aliyev has been living in Vienna since 2007. He is accused of involvement in the murder of two bank managers, allegations he denies.
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(News report from Issue No. 46, published on June 28 2011)
JUNE 28 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The London-listed subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state oil company, KMG EP, reduced its 2011 oil production target by 4% because of strikes in the west of the country. Hundreds of oil workers have been on strike for a month over pay.
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(News report from Issue No. 46, published on June 28 2011)
JUNE 21 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, an end to the row over Kazakhstan’s participation in the Karachaganak gas field is in sight.
It isn’t official yet but sources at the St. Petersburg economic forum told news agencies the consortium operating Karachaganak had agreed to give a 5% stake to the Kazakh government while the Kazakh government had agreed to pay for another 5% stake.
A deal, perhaps, and an important one.
Karachaganak, in the north-west of the country on the border with Russia, is one of the biggest gas fields in the world. It also produces a fair amount of oil. It is important both for Kazakhstan’s economic development and for investors as a weather mast of government sentiment.
Over the last few years, Kazakhstan has argued it should be given stakes in major energy projects in the country and Karachaganak was the only one it still wasn’t involved with. The government said that when the original contracts were drawn up in the 1990s, it was in a weak negotiating position and the Western companies had taken advantage of that.
The partners in the Karachaganak project are currently — BG Group and Eni with a 32.5% stake each, Chevron with 20% and Lukoil with 15%. They have been negotiating with the Kazakh government over its entry since 2009 when tax claims started appearing against the consortium.
The row had even threatened to derail the project as the government had refused to sign off on the next phase of its development in May until it had been given a stake. With the end of the ownership argument in sight, Karachaganak and investors can all move on.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The consortium of foreign energy companies developing the Karachaganak gas field in Kazakhstan have ceded a 10% stake to the Kazakh government, sources at an investment forum in St. Petersburg told media. A deal would end the two-year dispute.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan hosted the 10th annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Central Asian security organisation lead by Russia and China. Heads of states and senior officials from India, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan joined leaders from the SCO member states for the meeting.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Google, the internet search engine, accused the Kazakh government of trying to erect borders across the internet after it ordered all .kz websites to be hosted on servers inside Kazakhstan. Google said it would redirect traffic to a Kazakh language version of google.com.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The main significance of Google’s statement on redirecting users from google.kz to a Kazakh language version of google.com, was its analysis of Kazakhstan’s attitude towards the internet.
In a blog post on June 7 Bill Coughran, VP for Research & Systems Infrastructure at Google, was scathing of a decree from the Kazakh information ministry that ordered all .kz websites to be hosted on servers inside Kazakhstan.
“Creating borders on the web raises important questions for us not only about network efficiency but also about user privacy and free expression,” he said.
Kazakhstan has taken criticism over its attitude towards the internet before. In June 2009, the government introduced a law re-classifying blogs and chatrooms as part of the mass media.
This gave the authorities more control over content. Free speech advocates said it was a form of censure while the government argued it was needed to prevent the distribution of illegal material.
Kazakhstan, which chaired the OSCE, Europe’s free speech watchdog, in 2010, has also in the past blocked access to blogs and websites critical of the government.
Perhaps Kazakhstan is more sensitive to complaints from Google than to the usual chorus from human rights groups. On June 14, Google published an update which said the Kazakh government had decided the new law would only include future .kz registrations.
So, google.kz will stay but so will suspicions about Kazakhstan’s attitude towards the internet.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The China Development Bank agreed to lend Kazakh copper producer Kazakhmys $1.5b, deepening Chinese influence in Central Asia. The deal was agreed when Chinese President Hu Jintao met Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana, the second Kazakhstan-China state visit this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan could join Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in a Customs Union, local media quoted the country’s customs chief, Gurez Zaripov, as saying. The Customs Union, which analysts have said extends Moscow’s influence, is due to come into effect on July 1. The Kyrgyz PM has also said Kyrgyzstan may join the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)