OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan is negotiating a deal to export 100,000 tonnes of fertiliser to China every year, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported. Three years ago Uzbekistan built a potash fertiliser plant with 200,000 tonnes of annual capacity. It wants to increase capacity at the plant.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The twitter account of Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter and potential successor of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, has closed without explanation. Ms Karimova had used her twitter account to respond to criticism and also to post photos from her latest music video or yoga class.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
SEPT. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shaking off the West’s child labour accusations, Uzbekistan signed a major cotton export deal with China, media reported. Uzbekistan will now export 300,000 tonnes of cotton fibre to China, half its total production.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch, the New York-based lobby group, accused the Uzbek authorities of fabricating charges against activist Bobomurod Razzakov. A court in Bukhara found Razzakov guilty of human trafficking on Sept. 24 and sentenced him to four years in prison. Rights groups say Uzbekistan has one of the worst records in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — While Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, enjoys dabbling in politics and releasing pop videos, her sister Lola is, apparently, happiest at home with her family in their mortgaged house in Geneva.
That was the message, at least from Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva in a rare email interview with BBC on Sept. 27.
Ms Karimova-Tillyaeva also said that she hadn’t spoke to her elder sister for 12 years.
“All the information about my sister, I get from the foreign media, including the BBC website,” she said.
Gulnara Karimova is often touted as a potential successor to her father who has been president of Uzbekistan since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. By contrast, Ms Karimova-Tillyaeva said her main interest was her three children and husband Timur Tillyaev.
Ms Karimova-Tillyaeva also said that she was surprised to read in the Swiss press that she was one of the richest people in the country. Her husband, she said, ran a logistics company and they took a mortgage to buy their house which cost a reported $46m.
Two years ago, Ms Karimova-Tillyaeva lost a libel case against a French website that had described her as a dictator’s daughter.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will allow five more airports, mainly in the eastern Ferghana Valley, to accept international flights, media reported. The flights are likely to serve Russia where labourers head for jobs, underlining the importance of Uzbekistan’s migrant workforce to its economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has tripled cotton fibre exports to China to 300,000 tonnes, about half its total production, media reported.
The move is a snub to European and US buyers which have been lobbying to force Uzbekistan to drop its use of children to pick the cotton. It’s also another indicator of the deepening reach of China in Central Asia.
Cotton is important to Uzbekistan. It harvests around 3.3m tonnes of raw cotton a year and is the world’s second largest exporter.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s tour of Central Asia last month had focused on energy supplies and security issues. This deal, though, was apparently secured when he was in Tashkent.
After China, Bangladesh and South Korea are the biggest buyers, underlining how little leverage the West has with Uzbekistan over its cotton harvest.
The West’s push to stop Uzbekistan using children to pick cotton does, though, appear to have had some impact. Reports from Uzbekistan at the start of the cotton picking season said that the state-run plantations had now stopped employing school children to pick the cotton.
In September Uzbek authorities also allowed a team of monitors from the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) in the country to observe the cotton harvest, although human rights groups said they were still worried that the observers would only be allowed a blinkered view.
Their official report is widely anticipated.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
OCT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek soldiers are expected to withdraw from disputed territory on the border with Kyrgyzstan, media reported. Local Kyrgyz accused the Uzbek soldiers of occupying the land days earlier. Tension has been rising on the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan border for the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The price of a loaf of bread in Uzbekistan has risen by nearly 10% to 600 sum ($0.3), media reported. Reports said that an increase in utility tariffs across Uzbekistan had forced bread prices to rise. Bread prices also rose by 10% in September last year.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s finance ministry has approved an increase in electricity and gas prices, media reported. Reports quoted state-run Uzbekenergo saying electricity prices will rise by 6.95% from Oct. 1. Uzbekneftagaz said gas prices would rise by 8.5%. Utility prices have steadily increased in Uzbekistan, upsetting ordinary people.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)