JAN. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry confirmed that three Kyrgyz — a pilot and two flight attendants working for a private airline — died in an attack by masked gunmen on a hotel in Tripoli, Libya on Jan. 27. Initial reports from Libya mistook the Kyrgyz for Tajiks.
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(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)
JAN. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — At least 2,500 people protested in the city of Jala-abad in south Kyrgyzstan against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, media reported. The protest was sanctioned by the authorities and is a reminder of the strong Islamic sentiment in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
>>Kyrgyzstan has not paid membership fees for two years>>
JAN. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United Nations has suspended Kyrgyzstan right to vote at meetings because it has not paid its membership fees for two years.
Also included on the list of nonpayers, published on January 15, were Grenada, the Marshall Islands, Rwanda, Macedonia, Tonga, Vanuatu and Yemen. An updated note a few days later said that Rwanda and Yemen had been re-instated as voting members after their bills had been paid off.
The UN’s rules state that if a country is two years behind its membership payment, it loses its voting rights.
The actual amount that Kyrgyzstan owed the UN was small, just $6,731, but that’s not really the point. For Kyrgyzstan, the non-payment of its membership fees to the UN is an embarrassment, whether or not the amount is large or small and whether it has been missed through a clerical error or not.
If its wants to be taken seriously as a place for foreign investment and engagement, Kyrgyzstan simply can’t afford to be highlighted on this list of countries in arrears. It needs to get the basics right.
For Kyrgyzstan, the embarrassment is even more acute as only a few of years ago it was applying to take on one of the rotating chairs of the UN Security Council.
In 2011, Kyrgyzstan didn’t win enough support to take on the Arab-Asia position at the UN Security Council. Now it’s lost all voting rights altogether, at least temporarily, because of an unpaid bill of $6,731.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The security forces in Osh, the largest city in south Kyrgyzstan, arrested six men they say had been trained at camps for fighters wanting to join the radical Islamic group IS in Syria. The authorities also uncovered a large cache of weapons with the men.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
NEW YORK, JAN. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The radical group IS is recruiting heavily in Central Asia, the influential think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) wrote in a new report, a phenomena that could destabilise the region in the medium and long term.
In perhaps the most detailed assessment of the recruitment drive by IS in Central Asia so far, the ICG estimated that between 2,000 and 4,000 men and women had been attracted by IS propaganda to travel to Syria and fight for the radical group.
“Should a significant portion of these radicalised migrants return, they risk challenging security and stability throughout Central Asia,” ICG wrote in its 16-page report.
“Their [the five Central Asian states] security services — underfunded, poorly trained and inclined to resort to harsh methods to compensate for a lack of resources and skills — are unable to deal with a challenge as intricate as radical Islam.”
Among the incentives for Central Asians to enlist in IS ranks, the ICG points to three main triggers: The opportunity to join a religious cause abroad otherwise suppressed at home; the rejection of gloomy economic prospects; the chance to express repressed political views.
Other causes are outlined. The lack of a proper education with youth members of Islamic congregations resorting to unofficial Muslim training; the lack of social safety nets for women; the accessibility to Turkey, the major entry point for the northern battles in Syria.
The ICG argues that IS is reviving the violence among extremist groups in Central Asia as well. The ICG called for the enforcement of strict rules on terrorism and tighter security monitoring by the states in the region.
In the short-term at least, ICG wrote, preventative measures are essential for combating the IS recruitment.
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(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)
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>>Crowds attracted across much of the region>>
JAN. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — An estimated 1,000 people demonstrated in a Bishkek park against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
Eyewitness accounts from the city centre park said that protesters held posters declaring: “I am not Charlie. I love my Prophet.”
Other posters read: “We’re against cartoons of our Prophet”.
The “I am Charlie” slogan swept across much of the Western world after Islamic radicals murdered 12 people during an editorial meeting at the magazine’s headquarters in central Paris earlier this month.
Much of the Islamic world, though, has been far more reticent. Reports from Baku and other cities across Central Asia have also suggested that anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstrations have drawn relatively large crowds.
The protests are a reminder that for all the rhetoric of Westernising and of supporting Western military action in Afghanistan, that Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, and other countries where anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstrations emerged, are predominantly Islamic countries.
And these countries are not simply nominally Islamic, as they are often pictured in the West. There is a strong strain of fairly pious Muslim thought running through these societies.
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(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)
JAN. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz media reported that one border guard was killed and two more injured during a gunfight near the frontier with Tajikistan. It is unclear if the gunfight was linked to the ongoing border dispute between the two neighbours or if it is related to smuggling or other crimes.
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(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)
JAN. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kyrgyzstan have said recruiters for the radical group IS have started to extend their target areas to the north of the country (Jan. 16). Previously, IS recruiters had concentrated almost exclusively on southern Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)
JAN. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Centerra Gold, the Toronto-based mining company, said it will produce around 10% less gold from its Kumtor gold mine in eastern Kyrgyzstan this year. The company didn’t specify why gold production at Kumtor would drop this year. This is significant, though, as Kumtor is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial asset.
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(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)
>>Laws important in country with little formal health education>>
JAN. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Health Organisation (WHO) is lauding a move by Kyrgyzstan to increase tax on cigarettes and to make it law to publish garish images of the damage smoking can to people’s health on packets.
Kyrgyzstan’s parliament ratified the news laws at the end of last year, WHO said. The laws will equalise the tax on cigarettes with neighbouring Kazakhstan.
“Tobacco taxes for different types of tobacco will increase as of 2015 and are expected to increase to the level of tobacco taxes in the neighbouring Kazakhstan,” WHO said in its statement.
“As of 2014, tobacco taxes in Kyrgyzstan are 2-1/2 to 12 times lower than in Kazakhstan.”
The pictures that will be carried on cigarette boxes from 2016 show how smoking gives people cancer and other diseases.
This is an important step. Tightening regulations on smoking and educating the general public on the dangers of smoking is seen as a civilising step and a marker of a country’s development.
For Kyrgyzstan, where cigarettes appear to be clamped to the lips of men walking down a street and the purple fog of tobacco smoke fugs many bars, this is a big step indeed. Public health is often overlooked in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)