Category Archives: Uncategorised

Uzbek media announces Karimov’s re-election

>>Presidential election set for March 29 in Uzbekistan>>

JAN. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The clue was in the headline. A pro-government news outlet in Uzbekistan, they are all pro-government, ran a story under the headline: “Incumbent President Islam Karimov’s re-election scheduled”.

Nothing, it seems, could be more certain. Mr Karimov has already ruled over Uzbekistan for 25 years, despite constitutional articles that bans one person from holding the post for more than two consecutive terms.

Few people expect any surprises from this campaign and it appears that it suits the United States, Russia and China to keep the status quo. The only two other candidates cleared to run in the election by the Uzbek Central Election Committee are avowed supporters of Mr Karimov.

Importantly, also, there is little mention of Gulnara Karimova, Mr Karimova’s eldest daughter. She had been talked of as a successor to her father but has fallen from grace over the past 18 months or so. She remains under house arrest and many of her associates are in prison.

Uzbekistan’s up and coming presidential election, set for March 29, will be marked by its trademark lack of any real competition.

A seasoned Uzbekistan watcher also said that Uzbeks are apathetic about the prospect of another Karimov term in office.

“People, you know, are apathetic,” he said. “I don’t expect any surprises.”
Mr Karimov has been in power in Uzbekistan since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It’s inconceivable that he won’t win March’s election again.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

EBRD downgrades Kazakh growth

JAN. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In new 2015 predictions, the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said
Kazakhstan would grow by 1.5% this year, a sharp drop from the 5.1%
predicted in September. The EBRD downscaled Kazakhstan’s growth
estimates because of ongoing rouble and oil price falls.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Kazakh president summons econ chief for crisis talks

>>Nazarbayev summons his chief economic lieutenant for talks>>

JAN. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan
Nazarbayev summoned the head of Samruk Kazyna, the country’s
sovereign wealth fund, for crisis talks over the falling price of
oil and the drop in the value of the Russian rouble.

The meeting highlights just how worried Mr Nazarbayev and his
senior ministers are about the recent economic downturn. Most major
financial institutions now expect the Kazakh economy to grow by
only 1.5% this year, a relatively small amount.

When Mr Nazarbayev announced last year a new economic policy, he
aimed to enter the New Year with a Keynesian industrial programme
that would have injected billions into construction projects and
subsidies.

Currency depreciations and oil markets, however, have shattered the
plan.

After his meeting with Mr Nazarbayev, Umirzak Shukeyev, the Samruk
Kazyna chief, said: “The goal is to reduce administrative costs by
20% and investment engagements by 18%.”

This, then, is the opposite of what had been promised.

The most feared buzzwords on the streets from Almaty to Atyrau are
devaluation and austerity. Several consulting and investment firms
have forecast a devaluation in the first quarter. The research
branch of Kazakhstan’s second largest lender, Halyk Bank, told
Bloomberg that they deem a depreciation of the tenge as inevitable.

The leader of the National Business Association, Rakhim Oshakbayev
publicly asked the government to protect private companies from the
risk of devaluation (Jan. 20).

In Kazakhstan, the government is expected to act to reverse the
economic downturn but with no significant increase in hydrocarbon
and commodity output, its only option is to dig into the reserves
of the sovereign fund and hope for the best, or so it often seems.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Oil output from Azerbaijan’s ACG falls

JAN. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil production at the BP-led Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli oil fields (ACG) continued to fall last year despite pledges that the drop would drop, Reuters quoted a source at Azerbaijan’s national statistics office as saying. ACG is Azerbaijan’s largest oil field.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

IS threatens Central Asia stability, says report

NEW YORK, JAN. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The radical group IS is recruiting heavily in Central Asia, the influential think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) wrote in a new report, a phenomena that could destabilise the region in the medium and long term.

In perhaps the most detailed assessment of the recruitment drive by IS in Central Asia so far, the ICG estimated that between 2,000 and 4,000 men and women had been attracted by IS propaganda to travel to Syria and fight for the radical group.

“Should a significant portion of these radicalised migrants return, they risk challenging security and stability throughout Central Asia,” ICG wrote in its 16-page report.

“Their [the five Central Asian states] security services — underfunded, poorly trained and inclined to resort to harsh methods to compensate for a lack of resources and skills — are unable to deal with a challenge as intricate as radical Islam.”

Among the incentives for Central Asians to enlist in IS ranks, the ICG points to three main triggers: The opportunity to join a religious cause abroad otherwise suppressed at home; the rejection of gloomy economic prospects; the chance to express repressed political views.

Other causes are outlined. The lack of a proper education with youth members of Islamic congregations resorting to unofficial Muslim training; the lack of social safety nets for women; the accessibility to Turkey, the major entry point for the northern battles in Syria.

The ICG argues that IS is reviving the violence among extremist groups in Central Asia as well. The ICG called for the enforcement of strict rules on terrorism and tighter security monitoring by the states in the region.

In the short-term at least, ICG wrote, preventative measures are essential for combating the IS recruitment.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

ENDS
Copyright — The Conway Bulletin

Georgian Patriarch steps in Charlie Hebdo debate

JAN. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The head of Georgia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II, stepped into the debate on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, images that Muslims find offensive. In a statement, he said that freedom of expression doesn’t grant the freedom to offend.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Tajik electricity exports rise

JAN. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s electricity exports to Afghanistan increased by 38% last year compared to 2013, the Tajik news agency Avesta reported. This is important because hydroelectric power has the potential to become one of Tajikistan’s biggest exports. It needs a stable Afghanistan and Pakistan to realise this potential.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Anti-Charlie Hebdo protest in Bishkek

>>Crowds attracted across much of the region>>

JAN. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — An estimated 1,000 people demonstrated in a Bishkek park against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Eyewitness accounts from the city centre park said that protesters held posters declaring: “I am not Charlie. I love my Prophet.”

Other posters read: “We’re against cartoons of our Prophet”.

The “I am Charlie” slogan swept across much of the Western world after Islamic radicals murdered 12 people during an editorial meeting at the magazine’s headquarters in central Paris earlier this month.

Much of the Islamic world, though, has been far more reticent. Reports from Baku and other cities across Central Asia have also suggested that anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstrations have drawn relatively large crowds.

The protests are a reminder that for all the rhetoric of Westernising and of supporting Western military action in Afghanistan, that Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, and other countries where anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstrations emerged, are predominantly Islamic countries.

And these countries are not simply nominally Islamic, as they are often pictured in the West. There is a strong strain of fairly pious Muslim thought running through these societies.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Prices fluctuate in Armenia

JAN. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Price changes in Armenia have become increasingly erratic as the country tries to deal with the fallout of the Russian economic slowdown. In August, media quoted the national statistics agency as saying that deflation in Armenia measured 5.2% but for the rest of the year inflation averaged 6.5%.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)

Remittances to Azerbaijan fall

>>Remittances from Russia fall>>

JAN. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — As the Russian rouble falls in value, families of Azerbaijani migrants working in Russia face an increasingly frustrating economic headache.

The Azerbaijani manat has doubled in value against the Russian rouble in the last five months ago. This means that the Russian roubles sent back by Azerbaijani workers to their families are now worth half.

Unofficially around 2m migrants from Azerbaijan work in Russia. They send home about $2-3b a year, Azerbaijani economists have estimated.

Gulsara Qurbanova, a mother of three said she and her children live on money her husband sends from Russia. “Before he used to send us around 35,000 roubles a month and we received around 800 manat when we converted it,” she said. Her voice was strained with worry.

“Now it’s about half that. Obviously we face financial hardship because of it.”

The drop in the value of the rouble is hitting exports from Azerbaijan to Russia too.
Fuad Garibov from Khachmaz, a northern town in Azerbaijan said he has decided to hold on to a consignment of dates that he had intend to sell in Russia. “If I sell it now, it’s obvious that I will lose, he said.

“I hope that something will change soon.”

Azerbaijan’s economy is also reliant on oil and gas sales. With energy prices halving over the last six months, the Azerbaijani economy, which once looked so buoyant, is looking strained.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)