FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has started the $60m update of its Syrdarya Thermal Power Station, media reported. The Syrdarya Thermal Power Station is one of the biggest in Uzbekistan and is important as ordinary Uzbeks have been complaining of power shortages throughout the year.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Clearly wary of any backlash, Uzbekistan’s state controlled media have avoided all mention of Ukraine’s revolution. Uzbekistan has one of the most tightly controlled media scenes in the world. Exiled opposition websites reported that, as usual, Uzbek media concentrated on reporting President Islam Karimov’s latest proclamations.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran’s ambassador in Uzbekistan, Ali Mardan-Fard, said trade between the two countries would jump to $1b by the end of the year, tripling the turnover in 2013, media reported. Mr Mardan-Fard said Iran’s gradual opening up to the West and Uzbekistan’s position as a through path to Europe were driving the expansion.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Worried about the spread of Western aspirations, Uzbek officials once again tried to ban Valentine’s Day. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that, on the orders of the authorities, teachers at universities in Uzbekistan had asked students to sign a document saying they would not celebrate Valentine’s Day.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek tech developers, possibly under orders from the authorities, unveiled their version of twitter called bamboo.uz. Opponents of the government have described bamboo, which lets users post messages of up to 700 characters, as another attempt to control social media.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — After weeks of pressure it was Uzbek officials who, officially at least, cancelled a planned trip by President Islam Karimov, to Prague planned for Feb. 20-22.
Human rights activists had urged Czech president Milos Zeman to cancel the trip before Mr Karimov.
They argued that Mr Karimov’s human rights abuses were too deep to be overlooked but Mr Zeman had refused to back down. He said the invitation was a reciprocal deal because the Czech Republic’s president in 2004 had travelled to Tashkent at Mr Karimov’s invitation.
A trip to the EU would have been something of a coup for Mr Karimov. He has tried to reintegrate back into the international community since they turned their backs on him after soldiers allegedly shot hundreds of demonstrators in a town in eastern Uzbekistan in 2005.
Since then, though, NATO countries have wooed Mr Karimov to help extract their military kit from neighbouring Afghanistan. In 2011, Mr Karimov visited NATO and EU headquarters in Brussels and in 2013 he visited Latvia, then the rotating head of the EU.
But, while Mr Zeman couldn’t be deterred from meeting Mr Karimov, Czech government ministers could. What appears to have tipped Uzbek officials into cancelling the trip was various Czech ministers pulling out of meetings leaving Mr Karimov with nobody, other than Mr Zeman, to meet.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek president Islam Karimov wants to build Uzmobile, a subsidiary of Uztelecom, into a new national mobile phone operator. Uzbekistan has been trying, and failing, to sell kit left by Russia’s MTS when it quit Uzbekistan in 2012 after a row with the authorities over tax.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A law specifically banning books and pamphlets that encourage people to switch religion came into force in Uzbekistan last month, the Forum 18 news service reported. The law, which was formalised on Jan. 27, also allows the authorities to confiscate Muslims’ literature when they return from a Hajj to Mecca.
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(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It looks as if hostilities between Gulnara Karimova and her enemies have resumed.
The Prosecutor-General in Uzbekistan reported that police detained three associates of Ms Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, for alleged financial crimes linked to Terra Group, Prime Media and Gamma Productions.
Terra Group, Prime Media and Gamma Productions were Ms Karimova’s media companies until they were shut down in 2013.
Pressure has been building on Ms Karimova over the past six months. She has been trying to defend herself from her rivals, mostly in the Uzbek intelligence services, who want to derail any ambition she may harbour of becoming the next president of Uzbekistan.
Mr Karimov has been Uzbekistan’s president since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and, publicly at least, he hasn’t named a successor. Once one of the most powerful people in Uzbekistan, Ms Karimova has seen police raid her businesses and detain her associates.
One of those detained in police operations was Gayane Avakyan. Ms Avakyan will be well known to Swedish-Finnish telecoms company TeliaSonera. She was the owner of a Gibraltar-registered company that took a multi-million dollar payment in 2007/8 for a 3G licence in Uzbekistan.
Investigators are currently investigating the deal as they suspect it may have been a secret payment forwarded on to Ms Karimova.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Uzbekistan detained three close associates of Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov. Ms Karimova has been under increasing pressure over the last few months from rivals in the Uzbek intelligence service who want to derail her presidential ambitions.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)