AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kyrgyzstan uncovered an illegal pipeline pumping vodka into the country from neighbouring Kazakhstan, media reported. The discovery of the pipeline under the river Chu, which separates the two countries, highlights Central Asia’s entrenched smuggling networks and thirst for hard alcohol.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rompetrol, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas, will open 22 new petrol stations in Georgia by the end of 2014, media reported. This shows that Kazmunaigas is continuing to use Rompetrol to expand overseas and also that it believes that demand for petrol in Georgia is growing. Rompetrol already operates 70 petrol stations in Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged France not to extradite former Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov to Kazakhstan where he is wanted on various charges including stealing billions of dollars and plotting a series of bomb attacks. HRW said Ablyazov was at risk of ill-treatment. French police arrested Ablyazov earlier this month.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the FT, Umirzak Shukeyev, chairman of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, said he wanted to streamline the organisation and improve corporate governance standards. Over the past few years, Kazakh companies have attracted increased criticism on governance issues.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shakhtar Karagandy may be unknown across the football world but it has broken new ground for Kazakhstan. The team from the industrial city of Karagandy has become the first football club in Kazakhstan to qualify for either the UEFA Champions League or the UEFA Europa League.
Just two games, against Scotland’s Celtic on Aug. 20 and Aug. 28, now stand between the players of Shakhtar Karagandy and the glitz, glamour and riches of Europe’s top tier football.
Even if they lose against Celtic, they are still guaranteed a place in the group stages of Europe’s second tier competition.
For Kazakh football, this is a milestone. Kazakhstan is the only Central Asian country to play in UEFA, the European sector of world football, but it has failed to make any serious impact.
Now the unglamorous team from Karagandy, shakhtar means miner in Russian, has changed that. It beat FC Bate, a relatively experienced team from Belarus, 2-0 over two matches and then defeated Armenia’s FC Skenderbeu 5-3 over another two matches.
Win or lose against Celtic, Shakhtar Karagandy and Kazakhstan are finally set for a European football adventure.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — So, in the end, he hadn’t gotten very far. After nearly 18 months, police found the 50-year-old Mukhtar Ablyazov hiding in a luxury villa near Cannes on France’s sun drenched southern coast.
Kazakh prosecutors want to charge Ablyazov with trying to overthrow President Nursultan Nazarbayev and planning a series of bomb attacks in Almaty. He had moved to London to escape the Kazakh authorities but has been on the run since fleeing a court that convicted him of perjury. That was back in February 2012 during Ablyazov’s protracted case with BTA Bank, the Kazakh bank he used to be chair, which had accused him of embezzling billions.
Now Kazakhstan needs to work out how to get Ablyazov back to face prosecutors.
The problem for Mr Nazarbayev is that France can’t extradite him directly because Kazakhstan is not a member of the Council of Europe’s Extradition Convention.
This could have been a problem except, conveniently, Ukraine, which is a member of the extradition convention, has issued an extradition request for Ablayzov to face fraud charges. From Kiev, Ablyazov could then be sent on to Kazakhstan.
It promises to be a protracted extradition battle with human rights groups already warning the French government that Ablyazov is unlikely to get a fair hearing.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
AUG. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Romserv, part of the Rompetrol group, has won a $1b contract to modernise the refinery at Pavlodar in northern Kazakhstan, media reported. Kazakh state energy company Kazmunaigas bought a 75% stake in Rompetrol from Romania in 2007. The Pavlodar refinery was built in 1978 and is one of three in Kazakshtan.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
JULY 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Roughly 50 people were injured when a freight train and a passenger train collided at Almaty’s main railway station, media reported. Of the injured, five were taken to hospital. An efficient rail infrastructure is essential in Kazakhstan. The government has pledged millions to modernise the network.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
ASTANA, JULY 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — With typical panache, the Kazakh capital marked its 15th birthday on July 6. By no coincidence Astana Day, as the public holiday is called, is also the birthday of the long-serving president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Astana is Mr Nazarbayev’s pet project. He moved the capital from Almaty, in the lush foothills of the Tien Shan mountains to the barren northern steppes in 1997.
On Astana Day, the reflection of skyscrapers made of steel and glass shimmered in the waters of the Yesil River. Crowds gathered around the Pyramid of Peace, designed by British architect Norman Foster, and the Kazakh Country column symbolising Kazakhstan’s sovereignty. A sculpture of Mr Nazarbayev is embedded into the column’s plinth.
For his critics this sort of architectural eulogy proves Mr Nazarbayev is fostering a cult of personality.
This year, a festival of Kazakh nomadic culture took place outside the Khan Shatyr shopping mall, whose swooping design resembles the regal tent of the nomadic rulers of old.
One poet sang of a time when Astana celebrated its 1,500th anniversary. By then Mr Nazarbayev will be long gone but probably not forgotten. Most Kazakhs believe Astana, which means capital, is destined one day to bear a more evocative name — that of Mr Nazarbayev himself.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JULY 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank scotched rumours of an impending devaluation of the tenge. The tenge is tightly bound to the Russian rouble which is relatively stable. In Feb. 2009, the Kazakh central bank devalued the tenge by 21% shortly after their Russian counterparts devalued the rouble.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
