SEPT. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In front of thousands of fans at the national stadium in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s football team lost to Jordan in a penalty shootout in the second match of their World Cup playoff tie. The match had ended 1-1. Uzbekistan had been trying to become the first team from Central Asia to reach the World Cup finals.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
SEPT. 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — President Ilham Aliyev’s team have been highlighting Azerbaijan’s jump up the ranks of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness annual report.
It’s an election year, after all, in Azerbaijan and the WEF report is significant.
In an interview, Elnur Aslanov, head of the Mr Aliyev’s information centre, said Azerbaijan had moved to 39th position in the rankings from 48 last year because of the social and economic policies of the president.
It’s an impressive statistic. Azerbaijan has jumped from 55th position in 2011 and now lies above several EU states.
But it’s also worth looking at the detail.
The reason Azerbaijan ranks so highly in the WEF index is its high score for macroeconomic stability. Azerbaijan’s energy wealth gives it a healthy government debt ratio, a decent government budget balance and strong gross national savings. Azerbaijan also has relatively low inflation, another positive.
The report, though, also details serious shortcomings. These were mainly in the health and education sectors. Notably amongst these was the ranking for school management — 133rd in the world, out of 148 countries.
Significantly, too, of the business executives interviewed for the report nearly a quarter said corruption was still the biggest problem for doing business in Azerbaijan.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
SEPT. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a visit to a school in Astana, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev had some advice for the country’s youth.
He credited his success to an hour of exercise each morning and to his high-brow, if somewhat eclectic, reading material.
“I get up at 6.30am and do physical exercise for exactly one hour,” he said according to the Tengrinews website. “When you get used to living with it, you can’t do without it.”
And on his reading habits, Kazakhstan’s only post-Soviet leader and the self-styled Father of the Nation said that he took his inspiration from a select group of high-brow authors; Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekov, the Roman philosopher Seneca and the French 19th century novelist Honore de Balzac.
“You should read and not sit in social networks,” Mr Nazarbayev said on his visit to the school. “Social media is a fashion and will pass.”
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
AUG. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) –Kazakh football team Shakhter Karagandy narrowly missed out on becoming the first side from Kazakhstan to compete in the UEFA Champions League group stages after losing 3-0 in Glasgow, Scotland, to Celtic. Shakhter Karagandy had beaten Celtic 2-0 in the first leg of the tie a week earlier in Astana.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of youths in Almaty smashed cars and hurled bottles at police after a pop concert at a shopping mall was abruptly cancelled. Media reported that security forces called in specially armed riot police to control the crowds. Over 165 arrests were made and about a dozen people were injured.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — US singers Beyonce and Kanye West sang at the wedding of Aysultan Nazarbayev, grandson of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev. Leaders of ex-Soviet states often pay popstars to sing at private concerts. In June, Jennifer Lopez sang for Turkmen President Kurbangkuly Berdymukhamedov.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A conscript in Azerbaijan’s army hanged himself at a military base, media reported. Human rights groups have previously criticised conditions for conscripts in Azerbaijan’s army which has seen a number of suicides in the past few years. They have said bullying is a common feature of life in Azerbaijan’s armed forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — On Aug. 26, the authorities in Chela, a town in the region of Ajara in south-west Georgia, removed a minaret from a mosque. The official reason was to inspect whether the minaret had been constructed legally. Protesting Muslims claimed the removal was an attack on their right to worship and a debate over religious freedom kicked off.
Most of Georgia’s 4.5 million people belong to the Georgian Orthodox Church and are guided by the Church’s relatively conservative views. A Muslim minority, roughly 10% of the population, lives in Georgia, mainly in the south-east near the border with Azerbaijan or in the south-west along the border with Turkey.
The authorities dismantled the minaret from Chela and drove it to Tbilisi for inspection. There they decreed that, although the minaret had been made of illegal material, it should be resurrected. And so they loaded the minaret back on to a truck and drove it back to Chela.
Near Chela, though, a group of Orthodox Christians, stepped in and blocked the road. They don’t want the minaret to be resurrected.
The minaret now lies in pieces a few kilometres from Chela. Meanwhile, Georgia debates its view on religious tolerance.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
SEPT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sparking controversy, private donors in the east Georgian town of Telavi unveiled a new statue of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Stalin, who was Georgian, sent millions of people to their deaths in camps in Siberia. Many Soviet veterans, though, credit Stalin with defeating the Nazis during the Second World War.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Petrol stations in Uzbekistan have restricted fuel sales to counter a reported shortage, media reported. The shortages haven’t been adequately explained but may be due to stockpiling. A website linked to the government said fuel prices, normally controlled, may soon shoot upwards.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)