JAN. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Two Georgian nationals from the Pankisi Gorge in the north of the country have died in Syria fighting for the Islamic radical group IS, media reported quoting intelligence services. The Pankisi Gorge is a predominantly Muslim enclave. Georgia’s security forces have said that at least 50 men from the Pankisi Gorge have joined IS in Syria.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)
JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Protests in Azerbaijan’s peripheral regions could be soothed only with a resolute measure, the government thinks. President Ilham Aliyev decided to strike out VAT from flour and wheat products, one of the chief demands of the dozens of protesters that took the streets on Jan. 12-13 in several towns around the country.
The question, however, remains — will this one-off measure placate emotions?
Azerbaijan always had a fiery population, ready to manifest their discontent. The recent crackdown on freedom of expression and the virtual – and factual – suppression of any opposition led many to think that Azerbaijan would not allow the public to have a voice any longer.
Azerbaijanis have instead showed their, very real, anger. Video footage from opposition sources shows protesters and police clashing.
The economic downturn is threatening stability across the South Caucasus and Central Asia and poses a challenge to the authorities. How they, and how the protesters respond, is critical.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(Editorial from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – An online poll by Kazakhstan’s football federation asking fans if they wanted a foreign or Kazakh manager for their national team flopped after it fell far short of the 50,000 votes it needed for the result to be acted upon. By midnight on Jan. 14, the poll had attracted just over 2,500 votes, 5% of total needed.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The size of Kazakhstan’s prison population has fallen by around 20% since 2013 to 40,000 people, the Kazakh Prosecutor-General’s office said. Human rights groups have previously criticised Kazakhstan for the poor conditions of its prisons. Riots and violence by prisoners protesting against conditions had, only a few years ago, been fairly frequent.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 12 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Around 100 people demonstrated in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s financial capital, over the rising cost of servicing US dollar mortgages, an indicator of growing discontent over the worsening state of the Kazakh economy.
The protesters targeted two banks — ATF and Forte Bank — which they said were refusing to help homeowners with US dollar mortgages despite a 50% drop in the value of the Kazakh tenge. They carried a symbolic coffin filled with underwear and ripped up mortgage statements.
Sulubike Zhaksylykova was on the march. She is head of an NGO which is lobbying for banks to help mortgage owners.
“One of the main goals of the protest is to refinance mortgages in dollars according to people’s ability to pay,” she told The Conway Bulletin.
“There are many disabled people of first and second category who receive 26,000 tenge per ($71) month [of government benefits] and these banks require them to pay 100,000 tenge a month [in mortgage repayments].”
The Kazakh government last year released a 130b tenge ($355m) cash-pot which it handed to commercial banks to help them refinance homeowners’ mortgages. Ms Zhaksylykova, though, accused the banks of not doing enough to help people.
After the protest both ATF Bank and Forte Bank said they would work to improve individual mortgage repayments.
Public protests in Almaty are rare but as the economy worsens, emotions are running high.
The Kazakh economy has always had relatively high levels of household debt and after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/9, Kazakhstan had one of the highest proportions of non-performing loans.
Analysts have now warned that bad mortgages may be the source of another debt crisis.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Protests against rising prices broke out in at least five regional towns in Azerbaijan, the most serious and widespread civil unrest linked to an economic downturn that has shaken Central Asia and the South Caucasus over the past 18 months.
In Siyazan, about an hour’s drive north of Baku, heavily armed riot police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at crowds of young men who pelted them with stones. Later, reports said that at least 50 people had been detained by the police.
Footage shot on mobile phones and released on the opposition Meydan website showed police in full body armour carrying shields backed up by armoured vehicles marching towards groups of young men.
In other protests in regional towns, groups of men argued with officials and complained about losing jobs and a drop in living standards.
The following day, the Azerbaijani authorities released a statement that blamed various opposition parties for organising the protests. Azerbaijan’s opposition, which has seen its ranks thinned by a series of arrests and imprisonments over the past couple of years, said that the protests had been spontaneous.
Hours later the government appeared to back down over one of the protesters’ main demands — to stop prices from rising — by ordering a VAT exemption on flour and wheat.
A sharp fall in oil prices has hit Azerbaijan hard. It devalued its manat currency twice last year, halving its value. The government has also cut welfare and infrastructure projects.
There have been small-scale protests in Azerbaijan and in Georgia and Armenia, but these were the most violent and widespread.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Security forces in Armenia arrested two more people, including Garnik Markarian, leader of a small, obscure opposition party, for allegedly being part of a group plotting a series of assassinations. In November, security forces in Armenia raided a house in Yerevan and arrested 10 people for allegedly being linked to the assassination plot. In the following weeks, at least 12 more people were arrested.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen officials have started pulling cigarettes off shops’ shelves in what appears to be a draconian attempt to effectively ban smoking altogether.
In Ashgabat, an AFP correspondent interviewed a shopkeeper who said that officials had recently ordered him to stop selling cigarette or face a heavy fine.
“(They) came to our shop recently and forced us to remove cigarettes from the shelves, threatening us with huge fines,” 34-year-old Bairam Saryev said.
Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is known for his eccentricity. He is a former dentist and hates smoking. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has praised his efforts to discourage smokers by banning smoking in all public buildings, parks and offices as well as cigarette advertising.
Last year WHO said only 8% of Turkmenistan’s population smoked, the lowest of any country.
The Turkmen government has not published any official announcement on whether it will ban smoking altogether.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – By all accounts, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the president of Turkmenistan, is a very particular man.
He likes to be a winner, making sure that he wins horse races held in Turkmenistan each year. He likes, and appreciates, statues of himself which have started appearing in Ashgabat. He likes, far more than his predecessor, foreign travel.
He doesn’t like poor performing officials and he especially doesn’t like smoking. At least that’s the impression he has given.
Mr Berdymukhamedov has taken it upon himself to eradicate smoking, it appears. According to news reports he has banned smoking in almost all public places and has stopped shops from selling cigarettes.
This is, surely, a shame as lighting up a ciggie at the end of a day is a simple pleasure that had been available in Turkmenistan, a country not known for its personal freedoms.
Still, there may be one upside for smokers in Turkmenistan. The illegal cigarette behind the bike shed may come come back in vogue.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(Editorial from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)
JAN. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Revenues earned by the Kazakh national railway company were down by 12.6% in the 11 months to the end of November compared to the same period in 2014, the ranking.kz website reported. The website said that passenger numbers had dropped off, another sign of the tight grip that the current economic downturn has taken of Kazakhstan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)