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Uzbek police arrested top Tashkent customs boss

OCT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek police arrested the head of Tashkent’s customs department, Colonel Sirojiddin Gulmanov, and his deputies for corruption, media reported, a move linked to a drive by the National Security Service (NSS) to assert control.

Earlier this year around 100 officers at the customs department were arrested and accused of corruption. Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, has accused the NSS of being behind her own arrest and various plots to grab power.

An official from the state customs department, though, denied that the arrests of Colonel Gulmanov and his deputies was linked to any larger power play.

“During the investigation, cases of extortion for bribes from people and goods crossing frontiers (were discovered,” he said.

Uzbekistan is in a state of flux. Ms Karimova is under house arrest and media has reported that she will be charged with various economic crimes. Her colleagues have already been charged, found guilty and imprisoned.

She had been tipped to become the next president. Instead, Ms Karimova appears to have lost out in a year- long battle for control against the NSS.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Europe warns Georgia against seeking revenge through courts

OCT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s allies have given it another warning not to pursue political revenge through the courts.

This time the warning came from the European Parliament.

“Georgia will have to overcome the antagonism, polarisation and sense of revenge still present in order to continue its democratic development,” the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said, according to a Reuters report, in a resolution on Georgia.

The US and other European powers have previously handed out similar warnings.

Since relinquishing power last year, Mr Saakashvili has lived in New York. He has been charged in absentia with various misdemeanours. Other members of his cabinet have been charged and found guilty.

There is no love lost between the former government of Mr Saakashvili and the current government led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili. The two leaders hate each other.

Tension is, it appears, beginning to bubble over in Tbilisi over the issue too.

News reports from the Georgian capital said that extra police have been deployed around the centre of the city to stop rival gangs of youth from clashing.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kazakh President gives views on Gorbachev

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has had a ringside view on some of history’s most important moments. This includes the collapse of the Soviet Union and the final years of Mikhail Gorbachev’s time in power.

And, for perhaps the first time, Mr Nazarbayev gave his views on Mr Gorbachev to a correspondent from the tengrinews.kz website.

“I had to work in the system during the Soviet period and I was one of the critics of Gorbachev’s reforms, who believed that socialism could be corrected and we could move on,” he said.

“He had the expression of ‘socialism with a human face’ but no one understood what this was. Probably he wanted something close to a market economy. But if public companies are controlled by corporate market principles, the problem, as you see, is successfully solved.”

Rather than giving a historical insight of working under Mr Gorbachev, this statement may have been Mr Nazarbayev’s real point. He wanted to promote the idea of strong state- owned companies working in a market economy and also highlight the example of China, now an important ally of Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kazakhstan strives for petrol self-sufficiency

OCT. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Repairs and upgrades to Kazakhstan’s three oil refineries should mean that by 2016 or 2017 the country is self-sufficient in petrol, Kazakh energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said in comments to parliament. Kazakhstan’s energy ministry has ruled out building a fourth oil refinery to meet demand.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Uzbekistan to checkup returning migrants

OCT. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek migrants returning home from work overseas will now be required to fill out a questionnaire, media reported.The government has said it wants to find out how much migrants have been earning but analysts have said the questionnaire is linked to concern that Uzbeks have been joining the so called Islamic State group in Syria.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

French mayor visits Armenia-Azerbaijan disputed region

OCT. 4-6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A visit by the mayor of a French town to the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, controlled by Armenia-backed rebels but claimed by Azerbaijan, triggered an official complaint by the Azerbaijani government. Tensions are increasingly fraught around the Nagorno-Karabakh border zones.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kyrgyz government wants to control coal

OCT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz government said it wanted to impose price controls on coal ahead of the winter season. Coal prices jump up during the harsh winter months in Kyrgyzstan. Analysts, though, have cast doubt on the Kyrgyz government’s ability to control prices.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Kazakhstan extends Visa-free travel

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Visa free travel for citizens of 10 countries will be extended by three months to Oct. 15 2015, said the head of the Kazakh state tourism board, Rashid Shaikenov (Oct. 6). Mr Shaikenov also said the experiment, which started in July, had increased tourism by 13%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

Turkmen President talks up Caspian Sea pipeline

OCT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s president Kurgbanguly Berdymukhamedov ended a meeting of the leaders of the countries that border the Caspian Sea by saying that it was their right to build a pipeline across the inland water, media reported.

The meeting — which included the leaders of Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Iran and Azerbaijan — broke up without any major deals although they did agree not to allow NATO forces into the region.

Perhaps the most important single element of the meeting, though, were reports from Astrakhan, the venue in Russia for the meeting, that appeared to push the possibility of a sub-Caspian Sea gas pipeline nearer.

This has been touted before but has never been put into action. The cost has previously been considered too great but now, with demand for energy increasing from Europe, it may make business sense to build the pipeline.

There is also the extra added consideration that most of the infrastructure needed to pump the gas on from Azerbaijan to Europe has already been built or is scheduled to be built soon.

This week Azerbaijan’s president welcomed the deputy PM of Turkmenistan to Baku. Last week the head of Azerbaijan’s energy company SOCAR was in Ashgabat. There may be some reason behind all this activity. One to watch.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)

UZ to ramp up border patrols

OCT. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has drawn up plans to raise groups of volunteer border guards to help the official border guards division stop people crossing borders illegally, media reported. Uzbekistan is notoriously zealous about guarding its border areas. It has had border disputes with most of its neighbours.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 203, published on Oct. 8 2014)