SEPT. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s state-run cotton company will spend $1b building its own cotton processing plant, media quoted a senior official as saying. Uzbekistan wants to double its cotton processing capacity. Human rights workers have accused Uzbekistan of suing slave labour to pick its cotton harvest.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan have passed a law restricting articles that bloggers can publish online. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported bloggers cannot publish stories that defame the honour of individuals. Uzbekistan has one of the world’s tightest media laws.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan appear to be on the brink of charging the once all-powerful Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimova, with various financial crimes.
A press release from the Uzbek Prosecutor-General named a Karimova G. as part of a group that has been investigated for economic crimes.
“The investigation has undertaken to fully recover the economic damage inflicted on the State. 457 billion soms have been recovered to date from the members of the organized criminal group, who are present in Uzbekistan,” the statement said.
These various economic crimes hinge around taking state assets cheaply, embezzlement, forgery and blackmail.
Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted a source in the Uzbek government later confirming that the reference to Karimova G. was to Gulnara Karimova.
Ms Karimova’s closest aide Gayane Avakyan has already been imprisoned for economic crimes.
Ms Karimova has been under house arrest but, even so, the charges will shock Uzbeks who had, until 12 months ago, viewed her as untouchable. Ms Karimova had controlled all the biggest components of Uzbekistan’s industry and business, been Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva and had been tipped to succeed her father as president.
A power grab by rival clan members in the Uzbek elite, though, appears to have undermined her ambitions.
Although Ms Karimova’s fall from grace sounds like a purely internal dispute, the implications are region wide. If Uzbekistan hosts a complicated dispute over power and destabilises, it will affect the entire Central Asia region. With a population of 30m, Uzbekistan is the most populous country in Central Asia and some of the best transport links. It also lies geographically at the heart of the region and shares a border with all four other Central Asian states.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov is due in Dushanbe for the first time since 2008 for the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The two-day SCO meeting is due to begin on Sept. 11. This meeting is particularly important because of strained relations between the neighbours.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The 13th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will be held in Dushanbe on Sept. 11 – 12.
Russia and China lead the SCO, a group that has regional security and economic development at its core. The other members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The summit is expected to focus on deepening security ties and the possibility of expanding the organisation to include Afghanistan, India, Mongolia and Pakistan by next year. On Aug. 24, the SCO held its largest ever joint military drills to date in China’s Inner Mongolia province.
With Russia accused of arming rebels in Ukraine and the US-led NATO planning to enlarge by including Australia as a member, enlargement of the SCO would come at a sensitive time. As the only regional organisation to include both Russia and China, the SCO’s profile has grown over the years. Moscow and Beijing appear, though, to have different views on the future of the group.
In Bishkek this summer, China promoted its Silk Road Economic belt concept. This concept, focused on infrastructure investment and trade protection, seems to run counter to Russia’s own Eurasian integration efforts via the protectionist, China-exclusive Eurasian Economic Union.
The Kremlin has also reportedly persistently blocked the development of an SCO bank, preferring the organisation to focus on security matters, where it is closer to parity with China.
Both are said to be cautious towards any expansion that might dilute their respective influences, but acknowledge the need for the SCO to grow in order to relevant.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The black flag of Islamic extremist group ISIS was draped momentarily over a bridge in Tashkent, media reported. Uzbekistan is sensitive to Islamic extremist action because of its long-running fight with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Media said that police quickly removed the flag.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
AUG. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s government has refused entry to athletes from Nigeria and Sierra Leone for the World Wrestling Championship scheduled to start on Sept. 8 in Tashkent because of fears that they could spread the deadly Ebola virus, media reported.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Petrol stations across Uzbekistan are closing because of a lack of fuel supplies, media reported. Media has been reporting for some time that fuel supplies in Uzbekistan have been low. The government has also said that it is no longer able to subsidise petrol causing prices to rise, especially around Tashkent.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Regions across Uzbekistan have started work on a government edict to try and lure the thousands of Uzbeks working abroad back home, even though the economy is looking decidedly dodgy and the chances of full time employment are low.
Uznews.net, an Uzbek opposition website, reported that Samarkand, the second largest city in the country, has proposed all migrants who return will get given a job.
“I witnessed people like myself being forced to live a nomadic life in dirty conditions, without rights in a foreign land,” the website reported one Samarkand resident as saying in a propaganda drive.
“If we were to work as hard at home as we work in Russia, we would make good money.”
The drive to persuade migrants to return to Uzbekistan apparently came in July from Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
It also coincided with news that Russia was going to make it more difficult for migrants to enter and also that the sanctions imposed on Russia since fighting in Ukraine started has reduced demand for casual migrant workers. This may have dampened demand for migrants from Central Asia who would typically do the cleaning and building jobs around Moscow and other large Russian cities.
Even so, Uzbekistan relies heavily on remittances from workers based in Russia and working on a campaign to encourage them back home is likely to be counter- productive.
Uzbekistan has plenty of infrastructure of its own to deal with, including crumbling road, rail and power networks, so, possibly, calling on more people to move back to Uzbekistan is counter productive.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
SEPT.1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps to prove his virility and good health, Uzbek president Islam Karimov danced with various other officials in public on Independence Day. The 76-year-old Mr Karimov has been the centre of much speculation over his health during the last few years.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)