AUG. 23 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least 12 Uzbeks extradited by Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan earlier this year have gone on trial accused of religious extremism, local media reported. Human rights groups had protested the extraditions of the 26 Uzbeks. Uzbek human rights group Ezgulik said two of the accused have already been sent to jail.
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(News report from Issue No. 54, published on Aug. 30 2011)
AUG. 25 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak signed major deals during a trip to Central Asia, turning South Korea into one of the region’s biggest business partners. In Kazakhstan, South Korean companies will build two coal-fired power stations and a petrochemical plant worth $8b. In Uzbekistan, a South Korean company will build a $2.8b chemicals plant.
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(News report from Issue No. 54, published on Aug. 30 2011)
AUG. 12 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Central Bank said it might revise upwards its inflation target for 2011 because of high food and energy prices. The Bank had forecast inflation for 2011 between 6% and 8%. Central Asia has been hit hard by inflation and analysts say rising prices for food and utilities could trigger unrest.
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
AUG. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan could allow militant Islam to spread into Central Asia, Russian media quoted Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) as saying at a meeting in Astana. The CSTO is a loose security group of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
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(News report from Issue No. 53, published on Aug. 17 2011)
AUG. 5 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan has returned control of its prisons to its interior ministry, which operates its own army, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported. The ministry of justice had controlled the prisons since 2002 but a series of breakouts and riots undermined its authority. US human rights group Freedom House criticised the decision as a step backwards.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
AUG. 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A closed court in Aktau, west Kazakhstan, jailed for six years a lawyer who advised striking oil workers. Natalia Sokolova was convicted of “inciting civil disorder” and also banned from practising as a lawyer for three years after her release. Human rights groups said the sentence was incompatible with Kazakhstan’s commitment to free speech.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
AUG. 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Attention may have focused on Western Europe and the US but Central Asia’s biggest financial centre, Kazakhstan, did not escape the turmoil that has gripped world financial markets over the last week.
A ratings downgrade for the United States and worries about eurozone debt have spooked investors. There has been a flight to safety — gold and the Swiss Franc have boomed — as investors have become more wary of risk. Not good news for emerging markets, then.
Tellingly, Kazakhstan has been one of the worst hit stock markets in the world. Between Aug. 1 – 9 Bloomberg data showed the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) lost about 22% of its value.
To throw in a few numbers, KASE — which includes the state oil and gas company Kazmunaigas, miner ENRC, copper producer Kazakhmys and the country’s biggest banks — is now valued at around 63% of its mid-February value. Many of the companies listed on KASE have their main listing on the London Stock Exchange where the drop was far less dramatic.
KASE recovered 7% of its value on Aug. 10 but it hasn’t been this low since the start of March 2009 when the world was tentatively starting to emerge from the global financial slowdown.
Of course volatile oil prices play their part in pushing KASE up and down but so does general investor sentiment and they worry about emerging market risk.
KASE may be a relatively minor stock market but it is still a decent weather mast. That said, emerging markets with their potential for high growth rates will always attract investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 52, published on Aug. 10 2011)
JULY 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A strike at an oil field in western Kazakhstan forced KMG EP, the London- listed arm of the Kazakh state energy company, to lower its initial 2011 production target by 6%. This is a further reduction from two weeks ago when KMG EP said the strike at its Ozenmunaigas oil field would lower production by 4%.
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(News report from Issue No. 50, published on July 27 2011)
JULY 25 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh billionaire Timur Kulibayev could take over the presidency of Kazakhstan if his father-in-law, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, was forced to step down, one of Mr Nazarbayev’s top political advisers told a newspaper. Yermukhamet Yertysbayev’s statement re-ignited debate over succession plans in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 50, published on July 27 2011)
JULY 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh constitution bans its subjects from discussing the health of Nursultan Nazarbayev, their 71-year-old leader, but a week after news leaked out that he may have visited a hospital in Germany for prostrate surgery, his succession plans have become the talk of the country.
Now Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, one of Mr Nazarbayev’s closest advisers, has suggested his son-in-law Timur Kulibayev could take over if ill health ever forced the president to step down.
“It is Kulibayev who would be able to continue the president’s strategic course, in the case of an extraordinary situation connected with the sudden departure of the head of state,” he said in an interview to the Russian newspaper Kommersant.
Hardly definitive then, but what Mr Yertsybayev says is important. The Kazakh media have dubbed him “a nightingale””for testing public opinion of potential future policies by gently floating them out through statements.
It is also perhaps the first time that Mr Kulibayev, 44, has been so publicly linked to the presidency, although he was quick to deny any interest. This year Mr Kulibayev has assumed more power. He was made head of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund and also a board director at Gazprom, the Russian energy monopoly.
Earlier this year Mr Nazarbayev won an election that will keep him in power for another five years.
Kazakhs, though, have already begun discussing what happens beyond 2016.
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(News report from Issue No. 50, published on July 27 2011)
