JUNE 17 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The consortium of foreign energy companies developing the Karachaganak gas field in Kazakhstan have ceded a 10% stake to the Kazakh government, sources at an investment forum in St. Petersburg told media. A deal would end the two-year dispute.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan hosted the 10th annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a Central Asian security organisation lead by Russia and China. Heads of states and senior officials from India, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan joined leaders from the SCO member states for the meeting.
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(News report from Issue No. 45, published on June 21 2011)
JUNE 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Google, the internet search engine, accused the Kazakh government of trying to erect borders across the internet after it ordered all .kz websites to be hosted on servers inside Kazakhstan. Google said it would redirect traffic to a Kazakh language version of google.com.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The main significance of Google’s statement on redirecting users from google.kz to a Kazakh language version of google.com, was its analysis of Kazakhstan’s attitude towards the internet.
In a blog post on June 7 Bill Coughran, VP for Research & Systems Infrastructure at Google, was scathing of a decree from the Kazakh information ministry that ordered all .kz websites to be hosted on servers inside Kazakhstan.
“Creating borders on the web raises important questions for us not only about network efficiency but also about user privacy and free expression,” he said.
Kazakhstan has taken criticism over its attitude towards the internet before. In June 2009, the government introduced a law re-classifying blogs and chatrooms as part of the mass media.
This gave the authorities more control over content. Free speech advocates said it was a form of censure while the government argued it was needed to prevent the distribution of illegal material.
Kazakhstan, which chaired the OSCE, Europe’s free speech watchdog, in 2010, has also in the past blocked access to blogs and websites critical of the government.
Perhaps Kazakhstan is more sensitive to complaints from Google than to the usual chorus from human rights groups. On June 14, Google published an update which said the Kazakh government had decided the new law would only include future .kz registrations.
So, google.kz will stay but so will suspicions about Kazakhstan’s attitude towards the internet.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 13 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The China Development Bank agreed to lend Kazakh copper producer Kazakhmys $1.5b, deepening Chinese influence in Central Asia. The deal was agreed when Chinese President Hu Jintao met Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana, the second Kazakhstan-China state visit this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 10 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan could join Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in a Customs Union, local media quoted the country’s customs chief, Gurez Zaripov, as saying. The Customs Union, which analysts have said extends Moscow’s influence, is due to come into effect on July 1. The Kyrgyz PM has also said Kyrgyzstan may join the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joined Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev as a guest at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Astana. China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are SCO members.
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(News report from Issue No. 44, published on June 14 2011)
JUNE 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan was preparing to hand over Uyghur asylum seeker Ershidin Israil to China where he is wanted on terrorism charges, US-based NGO Freedom House said. Freedom House said Mr Israil could possibly be tortured in China and it accused Kazakhstan of putting economic ties ahead of human rights.
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(News report from Issue No. 43, published on June 6 2011)
JUNE 1 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian gas giant Gazprom nominated Timur Kulibayev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, to be one of its directors, media reported. Mr Kulibayev has become increasingly powerful. He is considered a potential successor for Mr Nazarbayev and this year he became head of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund.
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(News report from Issue No. 43, published on June 6 2011)
MAY 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov unveiled his country’s first military deployment to Afghanistan on May 27, nine days after the lower house of parliament agreed the mission. Kazakhstan will send four officers to Kabul in a non-combat capacity, he told a parliamentary committee.
The Kazakh mission to Afghanistan will probably not decisively tip the 10 year war NATO’s way but it is steeped in symbolism. The deployment will mean that soldiers from Central Asia, which is predominantly Muslim, will for the first time be serving alongside NATO forces fighting the Taliban.
In reality, the Central Asian states have been heavily involved in NATO’s war in Afghanistan for years, allowing NATO to use their airports, military bases, roads and railways to re-supply forces fighting the Taliban.
The Central Asian states have earned millions of US dollars from this supply chain deal but actually sending soldiers to Afghanistan is a far bigger step, as the Taliban recognised when it reacted to the announcement with a thinly veiled warning to Kazakhstan.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is adept at playing off different superpowers and Kazakhstan maintains good relations with Russia and China as well as with the United States.
He has also fostered increasingly close relations with NATO. Sending soldiers to support the war in Afghanistan now makes Kazakhstan a member of the US-led coalition fighting the Taliban and that’s important, no matter how big the contingent.
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(News report from Issue No. 42, published on May 30 2011)
