Category Archives: Central Asia & South Caucasus News

INCOMPLETE STORY: Kyrgyz-Kazakh trade rows

>> So what is going on here? Why are Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan rowing about trade?

>> In an interview with Euronews, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev blamed Kazakhstan for imposing a trade barrier in 2010 which then forced it to join the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union. The Kazakh side responded by denying that this had ever happened and issuing a formal complaint.

>> So is this serious? What is the back-story to this?

>> This an extension of a long-running feud between the two neighbours over trade. Each has accused the other of underhand tactics which have damaged their trade. Kazakhstan is a far bigger economy than Kyrgyzstan. This puts Kazakhstan is a far stronger position than Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyz MPs and officials often accuse it of essentially bullying it. The issue here, though, maybe that Atambayev is looking to deflect from his unpopular move in 2015 to pull Kyrgyzstan into the Kremlin’s Eurasian Economic Union. Kyrgyzstan became the fifth member of the group after Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia.

>> Why has the Eurasian Economic Union become so unpopular in Kyrgyzstan?

>> It’s mainly the timing of joining that was the problem. Russia had just tipped into a recession linked to a collapse in oil prices. Jobs for migrant workers dried up and various projects that Russia had promised to fund were scrapped. At the same time, Kyrgyzstan’s economy started faltering and the currency started to fall. Officials looking to shift blame found an easy target in the Eurasian Economic Union. There have also been some genuine problems with paperwork and with what was described in 2015 as a flood of cheap imports from Kazakhstan and Russia into Kyrgyzstan, which damaged local producers.

>> Are there any numbers to back this up?

>> The data that Kyrgyz officials use to back up their arguments is from the Kyrgyz Statistic Committee which said that trade with other Eurasian Economic Union members was down by over 18% last year. This was held up as proof that the Eurasian Economic Union was not working. The reality is a bit more complex. Kazakhstan also published trade figures that showed its trade with other Eurasian Economic Union figures had fallen by a similar amount. This may be more to do with the general regional economic downturn than the Eurasian Economic Union.

Kazakh port up for sale

MAY 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Aktau port, the busiest Kazakh Caspian Sea port, will be privatised by the end of the year, Temir Zholy, the state railway company which currently owns it, said in a note. Kazakhstan is pushing ahead with a number of high profile privatisation projects. Aktau port will be viewed as a valuable asset as it is the main gateway for goods being sent between Asia and Europe.

ENDS

Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Landslide kills 24 people in south Kyrgyzstan after heavy rainfall

BISHKEK, APRIL 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A landslide in south Kyrgyzstan buried a village, killing 24 people, including nine children.

The landslide has forced the government to explain why more people hadn’t been evacuated from the area around Osh, known to be vulnerable to landslides, after heavy rain.

Landslides are common in Kyrgyzstan, a poor and mountainous country where many people eke out a living from rearing cattle in remote areas.

Pictures from the landslide show a whole section of green hill had given way and crashed into the village of Ayu below.

The Kyrgyz ministry of emergencies, which has previously been criticised for being under-funded and ineffective, said that it had earlier issued warnings to everybody in the village to leave.

Elmira Sheripova, a spokeswoman for the ministry said that a dozen families chose to stay. She explained that families across Kyrgyzstan often refuse to relocate despite warnings from the authorities.

“Families refuse to leave dangerous zones for two reasons,” she said. “First, people say that they have been living in their houses for more than 20 years. Even their parents lived there for many years and nothing dangerous has ever happened. Second, people were not satisfied with the land provided from local governments.”

Nearly 18,000 families in Kyrgyzstan are considered to be living in dangerous area.

Ms Sheripova said that over 11,000 have been resettled from dangerous areas, 4,000 are on a list waiting for land to be allocated to them by local authorities but more than 3,000 have refused to relocate.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

 

Archpriest planned to kill Patriarch’s secretary, say Georgian officials

APRIL 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Prosecutor’s Office said that they are going to charge Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze with plotting to murder the secretary of Patriarch Ilia II, ending weeks of speculation that the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church had been the intended target. Archpriest Mamaladze was arrested in January carrying cyanide as he boarded a plane bound for Germany where Ilia II had been receiving hospital treatment. Prosecutors now believe that he had a vendetta against Patriarch Shorena Tetruashvili, Ilia II’s secretary.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Azerbaijani court considers blocking critical websites

MAY 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Azerbaijan has started considering the government’s request to block access to a range of websites that it considers to be excessively critical, including the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Media freedom activists have said that the move is a blatant attack on free speech. The US and the EU have clashed with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev over his treatment of the media and opposition activists.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Corruption allegations linked to Azerbaijan forces Maltese PM to call snap election

MAY 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Malta’s PM, Joseph Muscat, called a parliamentary election, after failing to shrug off allegations of corruption linked to deals with Azerbaijan.

For Azerbaijan, the allegations again suggest that President Ilham Aliyev is presiding over an administration comfortable with paying bribes and laundering money. Azerbaijani officials have either ignored or denied the allegations.

The media in Malta has alleged various corrupt schemes involving offshore companies linked to senior officials in Malta and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s main link to Malta is through a power station it is paying to build. In return, the power station has agreed to buy all its gas from Azerbaijan’s state-owned Socar. Malta-registered entities also own shares in Azerbaijani companies.

These corruption allegations are just the latest levied at Mr Aliyev and senior Azerbaijani officials.

This year the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe launched an investigation into alleged payments of 2.4m euros by Azerbaijan to Italian lawmaker Luce Volonte in return for help derailing attempts to criticise a human rights crackdown.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Hunt is on for terrorists in Uzbekistan

MAY 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek interior minister Abdulsalom Azizov said that every day the security forces are uncovering militants who have fought for the radical group IS in Syria trying to return to Uzbekistan disguised as migrant workers. Western security services are increasingly concerned that Central Asia is becoming a hotbed of radical Islam.

ENDS

Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

 

Trade boosts between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

APRIL 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bilateral trade between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan has increased by 37% already, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev said at a meeting with Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev in the south of the country. He was comparing the first three months of this year to the same period in 2016. Mr Mirziyoyev has made improving relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbours one of his main policy initiatives since taking over in September last year.

ENDS

Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Kazakhstan wants to act as OPEC of uranium

MAY 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan wants to act as the OPEC of the uranium world, manipulating prices with its supply- side dominance, Samruk Kazyna director Berik Beisengaliyev said in an interview with Bloomberg News. Samruk Kazyna is the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund which owns 100% of nuclear agency Kazatomprom. Kazatomprom mines 40% of the world’s uranium. Earlier this year it said it would cut output, sending depressed uranium prices up.

ENDS

Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

24-hour news channel to be set up in Uzbekistan

MAY 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will start broadcasting its own 24 news channel, the gazeta.uz news website reported by quoting a presidential decree. It’s not clear if Ozbeksitan-24 will broadcast in Russian or Uzbek or both, but the channel’s ambitions are clear as it will have a staff of over 250 journalists, including its own foreign correspondents. Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been critical of Uzbek state TV news coverage in the past, calling it boring.

ENDS

Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)