NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Egypt have charged four Tajik men with recruiting for the extremist group Islamic State (IS), the US-fund Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting officials at the Tajik embassy in Cairo. Central Asian states are increasingly worried about young disenfranchised men joining IS.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least one of the thousands of inmates freed last week under a massive amnesty sanctioned by Tajikistan’s government to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the national constitution appears to have been let out too soon.
Tabur Gafurov, 31, killed his 55-year-old father during a heated argument after he returned to his family home in Sogd region, northern Tajikistan, reported Tajik outlet Asia Plus.
The incident has called into question Dushanbe’s decision to release so many prisoners at once, undermining what one regular observer of politics in the country says is an attempt by President Emomali Rakhmon to project his domestic political power.
“The amnesty is classic authoritarianism at work,” he said. “He wants the population to know that he can give freedom or take it away as he pleases,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On yet another trip to Beijing, Tajik President Emmomali Rakhmon agreed a deal with Chinese PM Li Keqiang to increase China’s investment in energy, transport and agriculture. Although no details of the deal were released it does underline China’s increasingly dominant investor position.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
NOV. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan will have to increase its imports of grain over the next three years to cover a growing population, a ministry of economic development official told Tajik media. The news will disappoint analysts who had hoped that a gradual rise in grain production would reduce expensive imports.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iran said it had reached a deal with indebted Tajikistan to restructure ownership at the Sangtuda-2 Hydropower plant(HPP) plant built and operated in the Central Asian state by the Iranian company Sangob.
The new deal extends the period of Iran’s ownership of the facility by a further two years to 2029, a condition reportedly necessary because of a $40m bill that Tajikistan’s troubled state energy Barqi Tojik firm owes the plant.
Although details of the deal remain shrouded in secrecy, the importance of this agreement is that Tajikistan is having to agree to relinquish ownership of some of its core assets to cover various debts.
Tajik news agency Asia-Plus quoted an unnamed source as saying the deal was actually signed back in September. In March this year, the 100 megawatt plant was briefly shut down, suggesting a dispute between the sides.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
NOV. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan produced 1m tonnes of cement for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union, media reported. The boost in cement production is thanks to China which has built and operates a new cement plant. China has also paid for a massive infrastructure programme.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s GDP has fallen by 0.8% this year compared to 2014, the World Bank said, more evidence that economies closely-linked to Russia are suffering from sanctions imposed by the West.
The World Bank said that a fall in remittances from Tajik workers in Russia had translated into weaker domestic demand for goods.
“A Russian slowdown affects Tajikistan largely through the remittances channel,” the World Bank wrote in its report.
“A slackening in remittances weighs heavily on household demand, notably demand for services and housing construction.”
This is particularly worrying for Western countries which are counting on a strong and stable Tajikistan to act as a bulwark against any movement by the Taliban northwards into Central Asia from Afghanistan.
Most of the former Soviet Union has been hit by Western sanctions imposed on Russia because of its alleged intervention in the Ukraine civil war but the World Bank also said that a generally weak global demand for industrial goods was impacting Tajikistan too.
It said that industrial growth had fallen to 3% from 7% a year earlier because of low global industrial demand and falling cotton and aluminium prices.
These sentiments mirror the Tajik Central Bank. Both also predicted that inflation would gradually become an increased concern in Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Negotiations over the Tajik-Kyrgyz border have re-opened, media reported. This is important because this year there have been several skirmishes along the border. The issue of the Tajiki-Kyrgyz border is one of the most sensitive in Central Asia and has the potential to destabilise the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s government is increasingly worried about the number of young Tajiks fighting in the Syria for the extremist group Islamic State (IS). Media quoted officials as saying that 50 Tajik nationals had now been killed in Syria, up from five in June.
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(News report from Issue No. 206, published on Oct. 29 2014)
OCT. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Playing the role of the great benevolent master, Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon granted amnesty to 10,000 prisoners in Tajikistan to mark the 20th anniversary of the country’s constitution. Mr Rakhmon, president since the mid-1990s, regularly uses amnesties to relieve over-crowding in prisons which human rights groups criticise.
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(News report from Issue No. 205, published on Oct. 22 2014)