Tag Archives: society

Kazakhstan expels 61 Indian workers after fight

SEPT. 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan expelled 61 Indian workers after a fight at a construction site in Astana. The fight, with Kazakh security guards, highlights the often strained relations between migrant workers in Kazakhstan and locals. Kazakhstan’s economy now attracts labourers from across the region, including from China and India. The fight took place on the construction site of the 75-storey Abu Dhabi Plaza, set to become Central Asia’s tallest building.
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— This story was first published in issue 343 of The Conway Bulletin on Sept. 15 2017

Karaganda honours Soviet rock legend Victor Tsoi

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AUG. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The central Kazakh city of Karaganda unveiled a monument to one of the biggest rock artists to come out of the Soviet Union – Viktor Tsoi. He was a founder of the Kino band. Tsoi died in a car crash aged 28 in 1990. He was born and brought up in Leningrad but was famed around the USSR.
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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017

Kyrgyzstan vs Myanmar football match cancelled

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SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan cancelled a football match with Myanmar because of what it described as terror threats. The inference from the Kyrgyz authorities was that Myanmar’s treatment of its Muslim Rohingya minority meant the team was vulnerable to an attack. Myanmar is a predominantly Buddhist country. Last year a suspected Uighur extremist drove a car bomb into the Chinese embassy in Bishkek.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Uzbek authorities scrap live TV show

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AUG. 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan scrapped broadcasting live TV shows, programming that had been considered essential for displaying the country’s new era of openness under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that PM Abdulla Aripov wrote to journalists earlier in August explaining the policy change without giving specific reasons. Uzbekistan has looked to open up under Mr Mirziyoyev and has started broadcasting a 24-hour news channel.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Gazprom opens new gas pipeline in Kyrgyzstan

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BISHKEK, AUG. 30 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller officially unveiled a renovated section of the gas pipeline that pumps gas from Bukhara in Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan and on to Kazakhstan.

The pipeline renovation is seen as a major piece of regional infrastructure that should improve access to heat and electricity for residents of Bishkek and other Kyrgyz cities. It also highlights the power of Gazprom in the region. It bought the Kyrgyz gas distribution business in Kyrgyzstan in 2013 for a symbolic $1, promising to improve its performance.

The opening of the new pipeline will go along way to making good on this promise and also towards strengthening Russia’s soft power impact in the region.

“The reconstruction of the Kyrgyz section of the Bukhara Gas-Bearing Province – Tashkent – Bishkek – Almaty gas pipeline has taken us to the next level in terms of reliability of gas supplies not only to the north of the Kyrgyz Republic, but also to the south of Kazakhstan,” media quoted Mr Miller as saying.

Gazprom officials said that the capacity of the pipeline had been doubled and that nearly 2,000 extra homes in Kyrgyzstan had been added to the mains gas network.
Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev was also at the opening ceremony of the pipeline. His presence underscored the pipeline’s significance and also how it connects neighbours with often fractious relations. Previously, under Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan had withheld gas deliveries to Kyrgyzstan as a weapon.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Thousands of Turkmen lose homes before Games

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SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch accused the Turkmen authorities of forcibly evicting people from their homes and for failing to give them adequate compensation. The allegations were made on the eve of the opening of the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. Turkmenistan’s president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has set much store by the Games. News reports have been leaking out of the country over the past year of mass evictions to make way for Games’ infrastructure. The Turkmen government has not responded.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Georgia closes second school linked to Gulen

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TBILISI, AUG. 360 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Georgia closed a second school linked to Turkey’s Gulen movement, nearly four months after they detained one of its senior staff members and accused him of being linked to terrorism.
Turkey has pressured its neighbours into arresting and deporting people it has linked to a failed coup last year that it blames on so-called Gulenists. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have, so far, refused to bend to the pressure but Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and, increasingly, Georgia have acquiesced.
In an interview with the Georgia-based Open Caucasus Media, Gia Murghulia, deputy head of the education ministry’s Council of Authorisation of Secondary Schools said that it had revoked a licence for the private Demirel College in Tbilisi.
He insisted, though, that the school had been closed for teaching failures and not for any political reasons.
“We are not interested in political aspects,” he was quoted as saying.
Others were sceptical and said that the closure was political.
In May, Mustafa Cabuk, a Turkish manager at the school was detained for his alleged links to the Gulen movement. He has since been fighting extradition attempts, saying that he would be tortured if he was sent back to Turkey.
Georgia has also revoked the licence of a school in Batumi linked to the Gulen network and detained a Turkish businessman.
In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gulenists, followers of the exiled of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, headed out from Turkey and set up a series of schools and universities across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Georgia has been fostering increasingly close ties with Turkey. It jointly hosts a gas pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to Europe, is developing commercial interests and hosts joint military exercises.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Georgia court convicts priest of attempted murder

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TBILISI, SEPT. 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A judge in Tbilisi convicted Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze of trying to murder the secretary of Patriarch Ilia II, a case that has grip the nation for the past eight months.
Mamaladze was arrested in February trying to board a flight to Berlin, where the Patriarch and his entourage were staying, carrying cyanide. Initially, it was thought the poison was meant for the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church but later it emerged that Mamaladze had intended to poison his secretary Shorena Tetruashvili because of a grudge he held. Ms Tetruashvili is the influential confident of the 84-year-old Patriarch.
Ilia II is one of the most powerful people in Georgia. He has been in this position since 1977.
The bearded and bespectacled Mamaladze has denied the charges and said that he will contest the verdict at the European Court of Human Rights. He chose not to be present in the court when the verdict was read out by the judge. There was no jury in this case. His lawyers stormed out, though, saying that the judge had been pressured into making this decision.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Tbilisi hosts world chess championships

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AUG. 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The world’s top chess players gathered in Tbilisi for the FIDE World Cup, which carries a $1.28m prize and qualifies the top two players for a tournament to decide who will take on champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway next year. FIDE is the World Chess Federation, currently headed by Kirsan Ilymuzhinov. The tournament will host 128 players.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)

Starbuks opening in Ashgabat is fake news

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AUG. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of people were taken in by images that appeared to show that Starbucks, the US coffee shop chain, had opened up its first store in Turkmenistan (Aug. 25).
Various pictures showed young Turkmen drinking coffee at what looked like a Starbucks coffee shop in Ashgabat.
The fake news appears to have been spread initially by a little-known website called http://www.atavatan-turkmenistan.com.
The original post said that Starbucks had opened in a shopping mall ahead of the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games which opens later this month.
Starbucks has only just opened its first stores in Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s economic powerhouse, and has not announced any plans to open in Turkmenistan or anywhere else across the region.
Neither the Turkmen government nor Starbucks have commented on the fake news.

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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017