OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, responded to criticism from her sister by accusing her of embezzling cash and having links with sorcerers, media reported. Lola Karimova-Tillayeva had told the BBC in an interview last month that Gulnara had little chance of ever becoming Uzbek president.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek media have reported that police have arrested Akbarali Abdullayev, a nephew of Uzbek president Islam Karimov. Analysts had talked of Mr Abdullayev as a potential successor to Mr Karimov and his arrest may indicate that a power struggle is ongoing. Reports did not specify why police arrested Mr Abdullayev.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov made his first state visit to the EU in nearly three years when he landed in Riga on Oct. 16.
Mr Karimov was officially in the Latvian capital to discuss bilateral relations and trade with Latvia’s president, Andris Berzins, as well as the withdrawal from Afghanistan of NATO forces. Latvia is a member of NATO and has supplied the US-led military alliance in Afghanistan with soldiers.
For Mr Karimov, though, there were other important reasons to visit Latvia. Until relatively recently, the EU had considered Uzbekistan a pariah state for various human rights abuses. European leaders are still wary of hosting Mr Karimov and he hadn’t been on a state visit to the EU since flying to Brussels in January 2011 to meet the EU and NATO chiefs.
An invitation to visit Latvia, an EU member since 2004, therefore carries more significance than it might normally. The publicity of a state visit to an EU member country would play well in the Uzbek press and television networks.
Latvia also takes over the EU presidency in 2015, so courting it now may be a clever strategy for Mr Karimov.
And then, of course, there is the small matter of a corruption investigation involving Sweden-based mobile operator TeliaSonera and payments allegedly made to Gulnara Karimova, Mr Karimov’s daughter, for a 3G licence in Uzbekistan in 2007. Investigators are looking into the role that a Latvian bank may have played in these alleged deals.
A useful trip to Latvia, then, for Mr Karimov.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan have started an investigation into alleged tax irregularities at Unitel, a local subsidiary of Russian telecoms operator VimpelCom, the company reported. Last year VimpelCom’s Russian rival MTS, quit operations in Uzbekistan after a similar audit was carried out.
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(News report from Issue No. 156, published on Oct. 16 2013)
OCT. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A train carrying 200 Tajik soldiers through Uzbekistan derailed, injuring dozens, media reported. The train had to pass through a sliver of Uzbek territory en route from Dushanbe to northern Tajikistan. Tajikistan blamed the Uzbek authorities for the accident, raising tension between the two neighbours.
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(News report from Issue No. 156, published on Oct. 16 2013)
OCT. 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish telecoms operator TeliaSonera demoted an executive for his role in deals made in 2007 to secure an Uzbek 3G licence. Tero Kivisaari was demoted from head of the company’s mobile division. Investigators allege TeliaSonera indirectly paid Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the Uzbek president, for the 3G licence.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A consortium of energy companies led by the state-owned Uzbekneftegaz will invest around $200m exploring south and east Uzbekistan for oil, media reported. The reports said that China’s CNPC, the Czech Republic’s ERIELL Corporation and Tethys Petroleum, registered in Guernsey, will also be involved in the project.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Doubts are emerging over whether observer from the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) will be able to investigate effectively whether Uzbekistan still uses children to harvest its cotton.
Eight teams of monitors from the ILO have been in Uzbekistan since Sept. 23. Their job is to travel around the regions and detail any incidences of child labour.
Bowing to worldwide pressure, Uzbekistan last year pledged to give up using children to pick cotton. This year it invited the ILO to send teams to watch the harvest.
But reports are now leaking out that Uzbek officials may be working hard to give the UN monitors the run-around. Media and Uzbek opposition groups have said that because the ILO monitors are cooperating with the Uzbek authorities, their movements are tracked.
This means that officials can warn teachers when the ILO monitors are approaching, giving them time to usher their pupils from the fields back into the classroom.
Picking cotton is a labour intensive task, so if Uzbekistan has really stopped using children, who is harvesting it instead?
Not medical staff, the podrobno.uz website quoted Abdulkhakimov Hodzhibayev, a senior doctor, as saying. He was responding to reports that doctors and nurses were picking cotton instead of carrying out medical duties.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek authorities moved, Dilmurod Sayyid, a well-known journalist and critic of the government, from a prison in western Uzbekistan to a hospital in Tashkent, media reported, triggering concern that his health may be failing. A court sentence Sayyid to 12 years in prison in 2009 for extortion.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Trouble appears to be brewing on the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Traditionally, Uzbekistan closes its border with its southern neighbour for 72 hours around its Independence Day celebrations on Sept. 1 each year. This year, though, the border remains shut, more than one month later.
Media also reported that Uzbek officials had cancelled a deal made in June with Turkmenistan that allowed citizens from both countries to visit the other for three days without a visa.
It’s unclear what exactly has happened or when, although officials from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan did meet in Bukhara at the end of last month to discuss border issues.
Whatever the official reasons for the border problems, the implications are fairly serious. Business and families are cross border affairs and detouring to the nearest consulates for visas and various permissions to travel is a time consuming tedious business.
One agency that will benefit from the confusion is the border guards’ service. The guards on the borders are notoriously corrupt and, although officially closed, people will still be crossing back and forth. The size of the bribe they need to pay will have increased.
Uzbekistan currently imposes visa requirements on citizens of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan but not Russia or Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)