Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Uzbek authorities urge anti-IS propaganda

JAN. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan are forcing parents of men and women who have fled Uzbekistan to join the radical IS group in Syria and Iraq apologise for their sons and daughters on state television, the eurasianet.org website reported. The footage of sobbing, elderly parents is supposed to encourage others to monitor their children more closely. Central Asian governments are increasingly worried about IS recruitment from the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Uzbek leader cuts cotton harvest

JAN. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov said in a speech he wanted to switch some cotton fields to growing vegetables, perhaps a sign agricultural self-sufficiency has become a more important objective for Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest will fall to 3m tonnes by 2020 from its current 3.5m tonne crop.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

VimpelCom to pay $600m fine for Uzbek bribes

JAN. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian telecoms company Vimpel- Com said it would plead guilty to bribing Uzbek government officials for mobile phone licences and agree to pay a $600m settlement in the United States, bringing a row over corruption in Uzbekistan that has also involved Sweden’s TeliaSonera and Norway’s Telenor closer to an end.

Sources close to the company told the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti that the amount that VimpelCom is ready to pay is lower than the $900m it set aside in the last months of 2015 for possible penalties.

A prosecution team at the New York District Court has been target- ing VimpelCom and MTS, another Russian company, who allegedly paid around $500m in exchange for mobile licences, but other companies have been dragged into a row that centres on corruption in Uzbekistan

In November, Norwegian police arrested Jo Lunder, VimpelCom’s ex-CEO for alleged bribe paying. Earlier, Norwegian authorities had sacked the chairman of Telenor, a company that owns — and wants to sell — a 33% stake in VimpelCom.

A parallel investigation is looking into a similar corruption issues at TeliaSonera, a Swedish competitor to VimpelCom in Uzbekistan. TeliaSonera now wants to sell its Eurasian unit.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

VimpelCom bribe fine in Uzbekistan

JAN. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s VimpelCom said that it was prepared to pay a $600m for bribes it paid in Uzbekistan to gain access to mobile phone licences. The row is part of a wider corruption investigation centred around bribes paid by international telecoms companies to gain access to Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Uzbekistan searches for assets

JAN. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan is trying to recover up to $1m of assets frozen in bank accounts in Europe belonging to Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, media reported. Ms Karimova has been under house arrest in Tashkent for nearly two years. She was once considered a potential successor to her father. Swiss authorities are investigating her for money laundering.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Uzbek delegation heads for US

JAN. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – An Uzbek government delegation, lead by foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov, travelled to Washington to meet with its US counterpart, part of an annual bilateral process. At the end of last year, the US lifted Uzbekistan’s human rights ranking after the United Nations recorded improvements in its cotton picking system. Mr Kamilov met with US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Nisha Biswal.

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) –

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Uzbek police faces pay cut

JAN. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Policemen in the city of Ferghana told the Uzbek language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that they are not receiving their full salaries. The information stream from Uzbekistan is weak but evidence has been growing that prices are rising and shortages of good growing. The Uzbek government has not commented.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Czech company boosts deliveries to Uzbekistan

JAN. 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Czech engineering company Armatury Group delivered valves worth €3m ($3.3m) to Eriell, a service company operating in Uzbekistan’s oil fields, according to the group’s press release. Eriell, a Russian drilling company, is a supplier to another Russian company, Lukoil, which operates several oil and gas projects in Uzbekistan. The valves will be installed at a compressor station in the South Kemachi oil and gas condensate field, near Uzbekistan’s border with Turkmenistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Teliasonera writes off $622m of value from its Uzbek operations

JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Swedish telecoms company TeliaSonera effectively slashed the value of its assets in Uzbekistan by 5.3b Swedish kronor ($622m) to speed up a fire sale of its unit which it considers toxic after it was heavily implicated in a major corruption scandal.

Since last September, TeliaSonera has sought to sell off its businesses in Central Asia and the South Caucasus so that it can concentrate on its core mobile and data services in Europe.

TeliaSonera is under investigation in the Netherlands, Sweden and the US over its acquisition of mobile licenses in Uzbekistan in 2007. Prosecutors say the deal involved paying large bribes to the Uzbek president’s eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova. Rival Norwegian telecoms company Telenor has also been accused of bribing Uzbek officials.

The cut in value of Teliasonera’s Uzbek assets, which will be booked on its Q4 2015 operations, is part of a 7.2b Swedish kronor ($845m) cut in the company’s global assets.

“We are well on track shaping the new TeliaSonera and the process to reduce our presence in Eurasia continues,” Teliasonera CEO, Johan Dennelind, said in a statement.

“As a consequence of this progress and current status in the overall divestment process, Region Eurasia will be reported as discontinued operations. When doing this we are obliged to change valuation method for these operations. This has resulted in an impairment charge relating to our operations in Uzbekistan.”

In its forthcoming 2015 annual report, due later this month, TeliaSonera will block out results from the Eurasia region and tag it “held for sale”.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

UK’s Alpha and Uzbekistan’s Fayz Farm sign deal

JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — UK-based Alpha Pharm Trading and Uzbekistan’s Fayz Farm signed a deal to create a joint venture to produce medicines in the Navoi free industrial economic zone. The joint venture, called Novo Farm Komplekt, will invest $3.7m in a factory and distribution centre for pharmaceutical products.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)