Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Uzbek president nears death after stroke

AUG. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov suffered a stroke on Saturday which left him with a brain haemorrhage, his daughter Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva said, setting up a succession battle over Central Asia’s most populous country.

Uzbekistan is, effectively, a lynchpin for stability in Central Asia. Its population of 31.5m is nearly as much as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan combined, it borders every other country in the region and had been the Soviet Union’s Central Asian administrative and logistical centre.

Under Mr Karimov’s rule, Tashkent lost out to Almaty as the commercial centre of Central Asia for Western multi-nationals but it still holds great sway at a more local level.

Mr Karimov has never publicly named a successor. His eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova, who had looked destined to succeed him fell from grace in 2014 over bribery allegations, leaving Uzbekistan set for a potentially messy succession battle.

Ms Karimova-Tillyaeva said her 78-year-old father had been hospitalised on Saturday after the stroke.

“At the moment it is too early to make any predictions about his future status,” she wrote on Instagram.

Uzbekistan is famed for its central role along the Silk Road, the fabled trade route several centuries ago that connected Europe and China.

Recently, though, Uzbekistan has earned a reputation for repression and for having a closed economy. Western companies have complained of state interference; accusations of slave labour have undermined Uzbekistan’s important cotton sector.

But the US, Russia and China — the major influences on Central Asia — will be hoping for a peaceful handover of power. The radical IS group has been growing in influence and the worry is that it may try to take advantage of any power vacuum.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Russia’s MTS sells Uzbek business

AUG. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian mobile phone operator MTS, which is listed on the New York stock exchange, said it had sold its business in Uzbekistan to the Uzbek government. The US authorities have been investigating alleged corruption at MTS’s Uzbek operations. MTS owned a 50% stake in UMS, the country’s third largest mobile operator. Various governments have launched a series of investigations into corruption by mobile operators in Uzbekistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)

Central Asian FMs meet in the US

AUG. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to boost the US’ regional profile, US Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a summit with all five foreign secretaries from Central Asia. Dubbed C5 +1, the meeting was a follow-up from its inaugural session in Samarkand last year. It’s important because the US has been accused of losing interest in the region since pulling its military out of Afghanistan in 2014.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)

Road sweepers protest in Uzbekistan

AUG. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Up to 50 street cleaners, mainly women, in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, protested against the local government because of unpaid wages. The Uzbek- language version of the US-funded RFE/RL news website said more protests were appearing in Uzbekistan over unpaid salaries.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 292, published on Aug. 12 2016)

Uzbekistan extends Beeline licence

JULY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government extended the telecoms licence for Beeline Uzbekistan until 2031. Beeline Uzbekistan said the extension of the licence was a key step for one of the company’s most important markets. Beeline Uzbekistan is a subsidiary of Amsterdam-based Russian telecoms company VimpelCom. In the past few months, VimpelCom has been fined millions of dollars for paying bribes to enter the Uzbek mobile market.

ENDS