JULY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajiks will be able to watch their favourite Turkish serial Defenders again after the government lifted a ban. The government had said the Defenders showed scenes related to extremism. Kazakhstan is also considering a ban. More likely the problem is fear of Turkish cultural and political influence.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh authorities want to improve the credit rating service by allowing people to challenge ratings they consider to be wrong. Credit is an important issue in Kazakhstan where banks are trying to control portfolios carrying some of the highest proportion of bad debt in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is negotiating the extradition of two diplomats languishing in a German prison for smuggling cigarettes, media reported. A court in Frankfurt jailed the diplomats in April. One of the jailed men was Kazakhstan’s General Consul in Frankfurt.
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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JUNE 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Almaty sentenced Bagdad Maykeev, a former General and Kazakh deputy defence minister, to six years in jail for taking bribes worth about $500,000 in a case that highlights the endemic levels of corruption at the highest levels in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Islamic extremists who have captured several cities in Iraq under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have been directly trying to recruit disenchanted religious Kazakhs.
In an interview with Tengrinews, a news website linked to the Kazakh government, political analyst Yerlan Karin said that he had seen videos put out by ISIS showing men with Kazakh passports being recruited and then trained.
He also said that in Syria, where Islamic extremists from Central Asia, had been fighting, units were organised along ethnicity. And this, experts have said, is particularly worrying as they may be more inclined to use the skills and experience learned in Syria back home.
“There have been such cases in Central Asia already: 25 Kyrgyz nationals who returned from combat zones in Syria and attempted acts of terrorism in their home country are now in prison in Kyrgyzstan,” Mr Karin said.
The authorities in Central Asia have been particularly nervous about the civil war in Syria and now the ISI attacks in Iraq, as they represent an easily accessible war zone for Islamic extremists to gravitate towards.
ISI have declared an Islamic Caliphate stretching across Syria and Iraq.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
ALMATY/Kazakhstan, JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Globally, eating horses is controversial. The Italians, Dutch, Brazilians and French traditionally enjoy horsemeat, but in the United States it is highly taboo.
Americans balk at the idea of eating the animals that helped to settle the West. Horses have not been killed for human consumption on US soil since 2007.
In Britain, the so-called “horsegate” outcry of 2013, when supermarket burgers and sausages were found to contain large amounts of horsemeat, reviled British sensibilities triggering an avalanche of criticism over food security.
But in Kazakhstan, with its culture so heavily entwined with a traditional nomadic way of life, horsemeat is still very much seen as a delicacy and a status symbol.
At midday in Almaty’s Green Bazaar, the counters selling horse meat were doing brisk trade. Vendors slammed lumps of horse onto old sky-blue weighing scales to count the kilos.
Aisha, who was 43-years-old and a mother of four children, hovered over a table packed with cuts of horse. Intestines and ribs glistened next to prime rump.
Saiyan, the owner of the stall, said that she sells Aisha her fresh horsemeat three times a week. The horse meat cost 2,200 Tenge ($12) a kilo.
Dressed in a white trouser suit and yellow snakeskin shoes Aisha inspected the different cuts.
“My family eats a small amount of horse meat every day,” she said. “We don’t suffer from any flu or illness. This is why we eat it, for good health.”
Horsemeat in the Green Bazaar, however, is twice the price of lamb in the main markets. It might be beneficial to health and cherished by Kazakhs, but it is only obtainable to a privileged few.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting Kazakhstan’s regional economic pull, the authorities have decided to set up a centre to deal with the problems of Tajik migrant workers, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. After Russia, Kazakhstan is the most popular destination for Tajik migrant workers.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JUNE 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – It looks as if Kazakhstan has gently reformed its state pension plan without creating too much of a fuss.
Reform of the generous Soviet-era pension scheme is a particularly thorny issue across the former Soviet Union. Armenia’s government resigned in April because of protests against its proposed changes to the pension scheme and last year in Kazakhstan, a minister resigned after suggesting that women should work for as long as men.
Now though, it looks as if the Kazakh government has gently pushed through the changes it needs to make.
State media reported that President Nursultan Nazarbayev had signed into law a plan to modernise pensions.
The basic premise of the new pension plan, which won’t come into effect until 2016, is that employers will pay the equivalent of 5% of their employees’ salaries to the government. This, media said, will be used by the government to cover a current shortfall in the pension scheme.
So, in total, Kazakh workers will from 2016 effectively contribute the equivalent of 15% of their salary to the government’s pension pot. Employees will pay 10% and companies another 5%.
As the increased pension contribution comes from companies, rather than from workers, it’s unlikely to trigger public protests. Analysts, though, have said that the pension hole has become so big that the Kazakh government may also decide to increase direct employee contributions. That may cause trouble.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JUNE 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uralsk, western Kazakhstan, jailed British oil worker Peter Baruch for eight years for child pornography related offences. Police arrested Baruch, who had worked in Kazakhstan since 2009, earlier this year after he was caught paying an underage girl to pose naked for him in his hotel room.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Almaty sentenced five men to between 6 and 7-1/2 years in jail for being members of the banned Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. The authorities in Kazakhstan have said that they are fighting a growing wave of Islamic extremism. The court found the men guilty of spreading terrorist propaganda and inciting hatred.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)
