NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev signed into law changes to the country’s employment code that make it easier for companies to sack workers. The new law also makes industrial action harder to take. Businesses have said that the law is a necessary modernising step. Trade unions have said it is designed to undermine them.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s government unveiled plans to boost excise tax on cigarettes and alcohol by up to 50% to raise 90m lari ($37.5m). The tax rises have been triggered by a drop in receipts linked to an economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, doubled a jail sentence for Rashod Qori Kamolov, a Muslim Imam, to 10 years after an appeal by a local prosecutor. Kamolov was sentenced earlier this year for inciting religious discord. Kyrgyzstan and other coun- tries in Central Asia are wary of the spread of radical Islam.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Seemingly trying to defy logic, the Kazakh government said it wanted to double tax on petrol but that the price rise would not add to inflationary pressure in the economy.
The day after economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev said that he wanted to increase tax on petrol, the new head of the Kazakh Central Bank Daniyer Akishev also said inflation this year in Kazakhstan was likely to be above even the upper 8% estimate.
The tenge has almost halved in value since the Central Bank ditched its US dollar peg in August, forcing prices up across economy.
Shortly after the tenge lost its US dollar peg, the government also ditched it price control over petrol, allowing prices to increase to match the tenge devaluation.
And now Mr Dossayev has said that he wants tax on a tonne of petrol to rise to 10,500 tenge ($16.70) from 5,000 tenge ($34.10) which would equal, roughly, to an increase of around 5% for consumers.
Petrol prices have already risen around 25% this year and any further increase will be unpopular.
As for inflation in general, Mr Akishev, made Central Bank chief at the start of the month, said targeting inflation was now his highest priority.
“Our task now is to ensure stable inflation and get back to the range of 6-8% in 2016,” he said.
The problem for Kazakhstan is that with oil prices continuing to be suppressed, pressure builds on the tenge to fall further which means that inflationary pressure also builds.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the town of Ridder, north- east Kazakhstan, imprisoned an internet blogger for five years for asking users on a popular social media website if they thought the east of the country should split and join Russia.
This is the first time that a new law banning separatist incitement has been used. The law was introduced in 2014 after the civil war in Ukraine broke out.
According to media reports, 26- year-old Igor Sychev, the blogger, has denied allegations that he was fomenting separatist feelings.
But this is an issue that the Kazakh authorities, up to President Nursultan Nazarbayev, are touchy about.
The north and east of Kazakhstan are populated mainly by ethnic Russians.
This population skew was one of the main reasons Mr Nazarbayev relocated his capital to Astana, in the centre of the country, from Almaty in the south in 1997 and he has spent much time re-working the history of the Kazakh state to be as inclusive as possible — without stretching the realms of possibility too much.
Nationalists in Russia have also increased tension by floating the idea of bringing north Kazakhstan into a Greater Russia.
On a trip to Pavlodar in the north of the country last year, though, it was clear to a Bulletin correspondent that for most ethnic Russians living in Kazakhstan, although their cultural centre of gravity may lie to the north in Russia, they still have faith in the Kazakh state.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Possibly aimed at either cracking down on corruption or giving the under-pressure somoni currency a boost, Tajikistan’s parliament discussed a bill that would ban Tajik official from holding bank accounts or property overseas. Corruption is a major issue in Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rauf Mirkadyrov, a high-profile journalist in Azerbaijan has gone on trial for high treason. He was extradited in April 2014 to Azerbaijan from Turkey. The West has been highly critical of Azerbaijan’s crackdown on media.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Baku released jailed human rights activist Arif Yunus from prison because of his failing health. Yunus will have to serve the rest of his sentence for various financial crimes under house arrest. He was sent to prison with his wife Leyla in August for 7 years. Leyla received a prison sentence of 8-1⁄2 years. Human rights campaigners have said they are political prisoners.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tbilisi reinstated the former management of the Rustavi-2 TV station, the focus of an ownership tug-of-war between supporters of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition against supporters of the former government of the UNM party. Earlier this month a court handed control of the station to a pro-government businessman.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Georgia handed the opposition leaning Rustavi-2 television station back to a pro-government businessman who owned it in 2004- 6, drawing accusations it was clamping down on free speech.
Two days after the ruling hundreds of people took to the streets of Tbilisi to protest against what they say is a crackdown on media freedom, ramping up tension in Georgia’s increasingly polarised society.
Under the court ruling, Kibar Kha- lvashi took back control of 60% of the shares in Rustavi-2, one of the most popular TV channels in Georgia, which he said he was pressured into selling to supporters of the then president Mikheil Saaskashvili.
“I declared at the beginning that it was my battle for justice. I want justice to be restored for everyone that suffered from Saakashvili’s regime,” media quoted Mr Khalvashi as saying. “This applies not only to Rustavi-2, but also to all other personal property that has been lost or confiscated.”
The other 40% of Rustavi2 is held by Panorama ltd. The current owners, two businessmen, have appealed the court’s decision.
The row over ownership of Rus- tavi-2 is just the latest increasingly bitter row between supporters of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition and their opponents, mainly Mr Saakashvilil’s former party — the UNM.
The Georgian Dream coalition, bankrolled by Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, won a parliamentary election in Georgian in 2012 and a presidential election in 2013. Since then public prosecutors have accused various supporters of Mr Saaskashvili of crimes when they were in power, imprisoning them or chasing them out of the country.
The US and European governments have warned the Georgian government of pursuing vendettas.
On Friday, several hundred people again gathered outside the headquarters of the TV station.
“We will not let the so-called new management enter our premises,” Rustavi2’s news anchor Zaal Udu- mashvili told the AFP news agency. “We will defend Rustavi-2 physically, using all available legal means.”
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)