Tag Archives: society

Kazakh Central Bank wants loans in tenge

SEPT. 23 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh Central Bank presented a bill to parliament that will force people to take loans in tenge, a tactic it says is necessary to wean the economy off its addiction to US dollars.

Shaken by a 40% drop in the value of the tenge over the past 18 months, the Central Bank wants to ensure that commercial banks do not accrue a large amount of bad loans in US dollars as they did during the 2008/9 Global Financial crisis.

“This is an effort to protect customer’s rights and to decrease the rate of non-performing loans for second-tier banks,” Kuat Kozhakhmetov, deputy chairman of the Central Bank, said when he presented the bill to the parliament.

If the bill becomes law, people who have not earned their salary in a foreign currency for the 6 months before asking for a loan will will only be able to apply for a tenge loan.

According to a recent IMF study, almost 60% of the total loans issued by financial institutions in Kazakhstan are denominated in a foreign currency. The Central Bank also said that 14% of mortgages are currently denominated in foreign currencies.

People in Kazakhstan have used foreign currency loans to buy goods indexed to the US dollar or the Russian rouble, such as houses or cars. Salaries are often paid in tenge but are indexed to the US dollar.

A fall it the value of oil and a slump in the Russian economy has pressured the tenge and other regional currencies. Loans taken out in US dollars have become much more expensive to service.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Ukraine complains to Kazakhstan over map

SEPT. 25 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Ukraine’s embassy in Astana sent an official protest note to the Kazakh foreign ministry after a school text book published a map of Russia showing the annexed region of Crimea to be firmly within its borders.

The map touched off a row that not only threatens to derail relations between Ukraine and Kazakhstan but also highlights the sensitive diplomatic tightrope that former Soviet states have to walk. Russia is the main economic driver of growth in Central Asia but Kazakhstan, and others, also need to maintain good relations with the West which firmly backs the Ukrainian government against the Kremlin.

“The Ukrainian Embassy has sent a note of protest to Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry because school books issued by the Mektep publishing house say the Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a federal subject of the Russian Federation,” Ukraine’s statement said.

“The distribution of this information contradicts the position of the international community and Kazakhstan that has repeatedly stated its support to Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”

Mektep is one of the biggest publishers of school textbooks in Kazakhstan. Its textbooks are used across the country and are based on the school curriculum.

The map, published in a geography textbook aimed at 16-year-olds earlier this year, showed Crimea as part of Russia.

Crimea quit Ukraine last year after a referendum overwhelmingly supported joining Russia. The referendum, though, has not been recognised by Kiev or its Western allies. Since then a civil war in the east of Ukraine has pushed relations between the West and Russia to a post-Cold War low.

Only a few countries, such as Syria, North Korea and Venezuela recognise Crimea as part of Russia. Kazakhstan, officially, has been careful not to recognise it as part of Russia.

When contacted by a Bulletin correspondent in Kazakhstan, the Mektep publishing house declined to comment. A couple of the book’s authors had previously spoken to RFE/RL, though.

They defended the map by saying that it wasn’t meant to be a political statement but instead to reflect the results of last year’s referendum.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Biometric data enables Kyrgyz people to vote

SEPT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Most Kyrgyz migrant workers will not be able vote in the parliamentary election because they have failed to submit biometric data to the authorities before the deadline. The Zamandash opposition party told RFE/RL that only around 10,000 out of 700,000 Kyrgyz living in Russia will vote in the Oct. 4 election.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Comment: Internal issues, not external, are trigger for violence in Tajikistan

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In Central Eurasia and the Caspian region, IS may not be a direct threat today but it could be in the future because many of the factors that create homegrown terrorism are already present. These are mainly the presence of foreign fighters from the Middle East and the influence of recruiters, particularly spread on Internet.

But importantly, and this is often overlooked, the penetration of politicised and radical [neo-] Salafism into pluralistic local Sunni- Hanafi doctrine and practice should be taken into account.

We should analyse thoroughly the factors that brought about IS into the Middle East to draw lessons on how to prevent the outbreak of similar cases in our region. Terrorism waged for the sake of seemingly religious aims cannot develop without a particular political conjuncture, social and psychological grounding.

Many analyses of terrorism have overlooked the psychological factor — the existence of hurt psychology and phenomenon of self- estrangement — in would-be radical militants. The mental prison of takfiri ideology produced by radical neo-Salafism incorporates the foundations of the above mentioned psychological factor. This factor is often coupled with the brutalisation of human nature.

Takfirism is a brand of radical neo-Salafism whose adherents accuse all other Muslims of unbelief and apostasy. Neo-Salafism is itself politicised, centralist, fond of a uniformity set of teaching which inculcates the siege mentality.

Consequently, we should be aware of the ongoing process of the penetration of neo-Salafist teachings in post-Soviet Sunni Muslim communities. The neutralisation of neo-Salafism in Central Eurasia would have been much more productive if it had not been the influence of some foreign actors. We cannot help but suspect the financial leverage of some states where political regimes are, at least, sympathetic to neo-Salafism.

Second, we should heed the phenomenon of the existence of how traumatised psychology shaped either by post-Soviet criminal under-culture or oppressive politics of highly authoritarian regimes.

We shouldn’t also forget that IS flourishes in the Middle East where the large communities of Sunni Muslims have become subject to brutalisation by oppressive and sectarian regimes.

By Galym Zhussipbek, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Suleyman Demirel University in Almaty

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Nazarbayev calls Kazakhstan land of Great Steppe

SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev used the 550th anniversary celebrations of the Kazakh khanate to espouse on one of his favourite topics — nation building. At the celebrations, he called on the country to be known as the Land of the Great Steppe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Zoo re-opens in Georgian capital

SEPT. 12 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — The city’s zoo has re-opened three months after a flood hit it killing 19 people and an estimated 277 animals.

Pictures of dead lions and tigers and of a hippo wandering through central Tbilisi flashed around the world on the morning of June 14 after the flood tore into the zoo. A quarter of its animals were killed in the flood.

The zoo has re-opened on its original site but will move to a new premise on the outskirts of the city later in the year, the zoo’s director Zurab Gurielidze said.

He also said European zoos had agreed to give 150 animals to the zoo.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

US stamps of Azerbaijan musicians

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US Postal Service has issued two stamps commemorating famous Azerbaijani cultural figures, media reported quoting the Azerbaijani consulate in Los Angeles. The stamps are dedicated to the 130th birthday of composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli and the 100th birthday of singer Rashid Behbudov. Azerbaijani official in the US have been lobbying hard to promote the country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Political row envelops Georgia’s city statue to lovers

TBILISI/Georgia, SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A row has erupted in the Georgian Black Sea town of Batumi over damage to a statue of the South Caucasus’ most famous lovers — Ali and Nino. The opposition UNM party, the political machine of former president Mikheil Saakashvili, has accused the ruling Georgian Dream coalition of deliberating damaging the statue it erected in 2010.

Batumi has become a political battleground since 2012, when the Georgian Dream won a parliamentary election. Mr Saakashvili had treated Batumi as a pet project, lavishing cash, ornate buildings and grand designs on the city.

Now, though, the UNM accuses the Georgian Dream of pulling down many of these projects to undermine Saakashvili’s legacy in the city.

In a Facebook post, Mr Saakashvili, who is now the governor of Odessa in Ukraine, said that under the guise of moving the statue, the Georgian Dream had irreparably damaged it.

“Today, with the support of Russian oligarch Ivanishvili, the moving statue Ali and Nino was destroyed.” he said. The Georgian Dream has dismissed the allegations. The statues of Ali and Nino had been sited at the entrance to Batumi’s harbour, a prominent position in the city.

Ali and Nino was first published in 1937. It detailed a love affair between the Muslim Azeri Ali and Christian Georgian Nino, and is supposed to symbolise eternal love and understanding between nations.

The statue was designed by Georgian artist Tamara Kvesitadze.

Lincoln Mitchell, a Tbilisi-based political scientist, explained just why Batumi attracted so much attention from the Georgian Dream.

“The UNM government spearheaded a dramatic modernisation of Batumi, a city that 15 years ago was a sleepy coastal town led by a nasty warlord.” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Georgian winegrowers protest against falling prices

SEPT. 11 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Several hundred farmers protested in the ancient winemaking region of Kakheti in eastern Georgia, demanding that the government increase subsidies for harvested grapes.

Eyewitnesses said that the demonstrations were passionate and angry but peaceful, although some protesters brawled with police after tension boiled over. There were no reports of any injuries and only three people were detained but the unrest does show how the former Soviet Union’s economic malaise is deepening.

A grape farmer attending the protests told broadcaster Rustavi2 that they will not back down, but that people are afraid.

“I demand a rise of prices. People are afraid of this government, they do everything to keep us quiet. What should we do?” grape farmer Murtaz Gorkhelashvili said.

The price for a bunch of grapes has fallen by 40-55% this year because of a fall in wine export to Russia and Ukraine.

Western-imposed sanctions on Russia and a sharp fall in oil prices have tipped its economy into recession. A civil war has heavily dented Ukraine’s economy.

In 2014 wine production accounted for 2.5% of Georgia’s GDP, a higher proportion than France, even, where wine makes up around 0.9% of GDP.

Independent consultant and freelance wine writer Caroline Gilby described how important wine is to Georgia’s economy and also to its national identity.

“Wine is economically critical to this small country with its limited natural resources,” she said.

The government subsidy, an election promise by the Georgian Dream coalition in 2012, of an extra 0.35 lari per kilo of white grapes and 0.15 lari per red grapes for farmers is considered insufficient by the protestors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Kazakh Mangistau receives inflow of migrants

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Almaty and the oil-rich region of Mangistau in the west of the country are the only regions in Kazakhstan receiving a significant inflow of people looking for work, data published on the ranking.kz website reported. The data also showed that most of the people moving to these areas settled in villages rather than cities.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)