DEC. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least 40 NGOs in Kyrgyzstan signed a petition urging Pres. Almazbek Atambayev to avoid signing into law a bill which will make overseas funding illegal, media reported. Mr Atambayev has previous said the law is important because it prevents foreign states from using NGOs to spy on Kyrgyzstan. The NGOs say the funding is a vital lifeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps in a push to boost investment from the Gulf States, Kyrgyzstan will open an embassy in Dubai. President Almazbek Atamabayev announced the opening of a new embassy while on a trip to the UAE. Kyrgyzstan has slowly been increasing its international presence over the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uruguay’s vice-president Danilo Astori visited Armenia, highlighting a little-known but important global relationship.
According to media reports of Mr Astori’s visit, Uruguay was the first country in the world to recognise the Armenian Genocide.
Armenia and Turkey have been rowing for decades over the death of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in eastern Turkey at the end of the First World War. Armenia has said that the deaths were part of an organised genocide by the Ottoman Turks. Turkey has said that the deaths were part of general fighting.
It remains a thorn in Armenia-Turkey relations and forms a major part of Armenia’s foreign policy.
Uruguayan officials were clear on the significance of the trip.
“The trip will have official status and will be important to strengthen the bonds of solidarity, fraternity and cooperation that unite the two countries for decades, when 1965 Uruguay became the first country in the world to recognise the Armenian Genocide and thus inaugurated a long list of agreements and acts of solidarity with the Armenian people that has continued to expand,” they said according to press reports.
The importance of this is that it underlines just how much emphasis Armenia puts on promoting the genocide.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in India arrested three women, two from Turkmenistan and one from Uzbekistan, for being sex workers, the Times of India newspaper reported.
The newspaper reported that the number of women arrested from Central Asia who have been sex workers has increased over the past few years.
One of the Turkmen girls arrested said she had moved to Delhi four years ago to work as a translator but that sex work was far better paid. She said that she had been sent to work in different cities in India by middlemen.
India has become something of a magnet for women who end up either in the sex trade or adult slavery and Central Asia is a particularly strong recruiting ground.
“Experts estimate that millions of women and children are victims of sex trafficking in India,” a US State Department report this year said.
“A large number of Nepali, Afghan, and Bangladeshi females the majority of whom are children aged nine to 14 years old and women and girls from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, and Uganda are
also subjected to sex trafficking in India.”
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a press conference in Astana with visiting French president Francois Hollande, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev called on the West to relax sanctions against Russia imposed for its alleged support of rebel forces in the east of the country. The sanctions on Russia have had a knock-on effect on Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The presidents of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Iran formally opened a railway line that will connect the three countries. At the event in Ashgabat, the leaders said that the railway line would increase trade between Central Asia and Iran and help ignite a new north-south Silk Road.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Georgia, vital for its economy, soared to $508m in the third quarter of 2014, its highest quarterly intake for six years.
The data from Georgia’s national statistics office also showed that China had contributed $149m, 29% of the total. This is double China’s previous record FDI injection in Georgia. By way of comparison, the entire quarterly FDI for Georgia in Q2 2014 was $151m.
These figures are good news for Georgia but it has to tread carefully.
Clearly an increase in FDI is good. Georgia’s economy is reliant on FDI as a major source of income. When Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in 2008, FDI dried up, hurting the economy.
But an influx of Chinese money poses new problems and new strains. China has opened a cultural office in Tbilisi and Southern China Airline now offers direct flights to Urumuqi in the west of the country.
Chinese companies, though, often prefer to fly in workers from China rather than hire local workers, straining relations with local communities.
Of course, Georgian policymakers will welcome the rise in Chinese investment. They must also manage it carefully.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
DEC. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan unveiled a project to build a six-lane 66km ring-road around Almaty which they hope will both ease congestion in the city and provide a new financing model for major infrastructure projects.
The FT reported that the number of cars in Almaty has exploded by 50% in the last five years. Anybody walking around its choked-up streets at rush hour will be able to taste the exhaust fumes in the air.
With support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Kazakhstan has launched a plan to raise $680m in what has been dubbed its first internationally-tendered public-private partnership scheme.
Importantly, as the EBRD’s infrastructure chief, Thomas Meier, said the project is a test of Kazakhstan’s attractiveness and in particular law changes made this year. Most important of these was that any disputes concerning infrastructure developments would be settled by international arbitration.
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(News report from Issue No. 212, published on Dec. 10 2014)
NOV. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek government is creating a job programme for migrants returning from Russia, official media reported. Uzbek media must be regarded with scepticism but, with news of its job-creation scheme, perhaps the government is acknowledging a downturn in Russia’s economy and its knock-on effects.
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(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)
DEC. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In talks ahead of a ceremony to mark the inauguration of a train line running from Kazakhstan to Iran via Turkmenistan, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev urged his Turkmen counterpart, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, to join the CIS Free Trade zone. Mr Berdymuakhamedov has been opening Turkmenistan to global trade.
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(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)
