Category Archives: Central Asia & South Caucasus News

Kyrgyz civil leaders criticise crackdown on Facebook as an “invasion of human rights”

BISHKEK, JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rights groups and civil society leaders in Kyrgyzstan have criticised the government for moves to monitor Facebook for comments critical of the president.

The row centres on the Kyrgyz National Security Committee’s (GKNB) move to identify and monitor 45 Facebook users who have criticised President Almazbek Atambayev. Facebook in Kyrgyzstan is one of the few mediums ordinary people use to express political opinions.

But Klara Sooronkulova, a former judge of the Constitutional Court who was sacked in 2015 because of a disagreement with Parliament over the use of people’s biometrics data said the move was wrong. “It is invasion of privacy and violation of human rights,” she told The Conway Bulletin.

A Bishkek analyst who preferred to remain anonymous said politics may be motivating the clampdown.

“The next presidential elections are coming [ in October],” he said. “They are taking measures to control chaos by trying to control who criticises the President.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Kazakh authorities arrest union leaders

JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the Kazakh authorities for arresting two union leaders on Jan. 20 for allegedly organising a hunger strike by oil workers earlier in the year against the closure of a union confederation structure. The two union leaders, Amin Yeleusinov, and Nurbek Kushakbayev, have been placed in pretrial detention. The Kazakh government wants to reduce the power of the unions, who they blame for a series of strikes since 2011.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Armenian opposition forms block

JAN. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The leaders of Armenia’s three main genuine opposition parties — the Republican party, Bright Armenia and Civil Contract — have confirmed that they will fight a parliamentary election set for April as a united opposition bloc. The bloc is called Yelik, Way Out. Leaders of Yelik said that they are in negotiations with the Heritage party, the fourth main opposition party, for it join too.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f

Azerbaijan to complete railway to Turkey

JAN. 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The 840km Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway link between the Caspian Sea and central Turkey will be completed in the next two months, Turkish energy minister Ahmet Arslan told media. The route is seen as a vital piece of infrastructure linking Europe and China. Mr Arslan said is would double the cargo capacity between Turkey and the Caspian Sea and become an important part of China’s so called “One Belt, One Road” trade project.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

S. Korea to sell its bank in Kazakhstan

JAN. 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — South Korea’s Kookmin Bank is likely to sell its 41.9% stake in Kazakhstan’s Bank CenterCredit because of mounting losses, Korean newspapers reported, a blow to the reputation of the Kazakh banking sector. Kookmin Bank bought its stake in Bank CenterCredit in 2008 for 940b won ($800m) but it has written down the value of the stake several times since then to virtually zero. Kazakh banks have been under mounting pressure over links to bad debt that have built up over the past couple of years as its oil-backed economy has weakened. Bank CenterCredit has been especially vulnerable because of its exposure to the mortgage sector which soured after a 50% devaluation of the tenge in 2015. Bank CenterCredit has not confirmed the reports.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Georgian Central Bank raises interest rates

TBILISI, JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia increased its key interest rate by 0.25% to 6.75%, its highest level since September 2016, because it said that inflation was beginning to pick up again.

The data shows that consumer demand in Georgia is still weak, year- on-year prices rises in December were measured at 1.8%, but the Central Bank said that its forecasts showed inflation rising throughout the rest of the year.

“The monetary policy decision is based on the macroeconomic forecast, according to which while demand side pressure on prices is weak, inflation is expected to be above its target rate for the most of the 2017,” it said in a statement.

Georgia’s inflation target was 5% for 2016 and is 4% for 2017.

Georgia has cut taxes on reinvested company profit, pledged to invest an extra 600m lari ($225m) in infrastructure projects and cut a free- trade deal with China.

Also on Jan. 25, Bloomberg News published an interview with Georgian finance minister Dimitri Kumsishvili. He said that a blend of tax cuts and spending on infrastructure would help Georgia’s economy grow by more than the predicted 4%.

Last year, weighed down by a collapse in the value of its currency a recession in Russia and the poor economic condition of its neighbours Azerbaijan and Armenia, annual GDP growth in Georgia measured 2.7%.

Since June 2016, Georgia’s lari currency has lost 21% of its value. The Georgian Central Bank has largely refused to buckle to demands to spend wildly to support the lari’s value and Mr Kumsishvili was adamant that the best way to strengthen it was through the economy.

“Strengthening the economy is the answer for the lari rate, this is the main task,” he told Bloomberg.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Currencies: Uzbek Som

JAN. 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Since the beginning of September, the Uzbek som has dropped from an official rate of just under 3,000/$1 to around 3,265/$1 – a fall in value of nearly 9%.

It’s a tightly managed currency and, straight away it needs to be pointed out that the unofficial black market rate for the som is around a third cheaper, but this managed devaluation is still important. Islam Karimov, president of Uzbekistan since 1991, died at the beginning of September and since then the devaluation of the som as accelerated. The graph shows this inflection point.

New Uzbek president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, gas said that he wants to promote personal liberties in Uzbekistan. This attitude has also extended to liberalising currency controls and Mr Mirziyoyev has talked about making it easier for ordinary Uzbeks and companies to take money out of the country. He may also want to reduce the price of an overvalued som more quickly than his predecessor.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

Denmark criticises Turkey for killing Armenian’s in WWII

JAN. 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a partial victory for Armenia, Denmark’s parliament voted to adopt a resolution that criticised a ban in Turkey on using the term genocide to describe the killing of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians at the end of World War II by Ottoman Turks. Parliament stopped short of describing the killings as genocide, saying that it traditionally didn’t issue judgements on historical events. While Armenia has pushed hard for foreign governments to recognise the killings as a genocide, Turkey has refuted all allegations of an organised genocide.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)

36 terrorist attacks stopped in 2016, says Tajik interior minister

JAN. 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a press conference in Dushanbe, the Eurasianet website reported that Tajik interior minister Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda said that the country’s security forces had stopped 36 terrorist attacks in 2016. No independent analysis of the figures was available.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)f

Armenia to introduce graphic smoking disease pictures on cigarette packets

YEREVAN, JAN. 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The five member states of the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) are preparing to act on new rules that will mean they have to place graphic warnings about smoking on all cigarette packages.

Lawmakers have heralded the move as an important step towards deterring smoking but many people in the notoriously hard-smoking former Soviet Union think it is a pointless piece of bureaucratic self- indulgence.

In Yerevan, Armen Manvelyan, 32, drew hard on his cigarette. It was cold, and snow lay on the streets. Like many Armenian men, he had been smoking since school. All his attempts to quit had failed.

“I don’t think people realise that it is dangerous,” he said. “They just find it really hard to stop smoking. I haven’t see any awful photos on cigarette packs yet but surely they are not going to stop me.”

InRussia the new regulations regarding cigarette packaging have already come into force but Armenia has until November 2017 to enforce them.

From then, cigarette packets will carry photos of smoke-affected organs and the names of diseases linked to smoking.

Smoking is part of Armenia’s culture. According to Alexander Bazarchian, director of the state’s National Institute of Health half of all men smoke and every year 4,000 people die of smoking-related diseases.

Mr Bazarchian said that the new EEU directive was important.

“Using photos of smoke-affected organs is an internationally proved practice to reduce the number of smokers,” he said.

The Armenian health ministry welcomed the reforms and there have already been a number of moves to cut down on the popularity of smoking. This has included banning cigarette advertising and banning smoking in many buildings and areas.

Importantly, though, in many restaurants and bars, where there is no mandatory ban, the air is thick with cigarette smoke. The EEU and Armenian officials want to change this.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)