MAY 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili said that he opposed stripping the Central Bank of its supervisory duties over the country’s commercial banks. As reported in last week’s Bulletin, reformers suggested that these powers should be given to an independent body.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A law in Kyrgyzstan banning the import, registration and maintenance of righthand-drive cars came into force. The bill was signed into law earlier this year. Traffic experts in Kyrgyzstan have said that righthand drive cars are involved in more accidents than lefthand drive cars.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s parliament passed a preliminary reading of the so-called Foreign Agents Bill which will, basically, make it harder for local NGOs to receive money from Western organisations. The bill is similar to one passed by Russia in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
JUNE 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s prosecutor-general issued an arrest warrant for Gulmurod Khalimov, the paramilitary police chief who defected to IS in Syria.
Mr Khalimov was also formally stripped of his military title. He had been a colonel.
He appeared at the end of May in a video from Syria in which he cradled a sniper rifle and pledged to ferment revolution in Tajikistan.
Mr Khalimov had left his home in April, telling his wife that he was going away on a business trip for a few days.
Instead he became IS’ most high-profile recruit from Central Asia.
Central Asian countries are increasingly worried about the ability of IS to recruit disenfranchised and poor young men from the region. With his glamour and seniority, Mr Khalimov’s recruitment has added extra weight to the IS propaganda programme.
Mr Khalimov had led Tajikistan’s paramilitary OMON unit and had been trained by special forces in the United States and in Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s parliament said that it had started considering whether to scrap a law that bans people over the age of 70 from being president. This may sound arcane and fringe even, but it is also vitally important.
Repealing this law would allow current president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to remain in power for as long as he wanted.
There are already very few checks and balances on his powers. And, according to Eurasianet, the man chairing the commission looking into the idea of scrapping the law is Mr Berdymukhamedov himself. At 57-years-old, Mr Berymukhamedov may be thinking about his future.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Traffic on Kyrgyzstan’s roads is growing by about 5% a year, Oleg Pankratov, Kyrgyzstan’s minister of economy, said. Mr Pankratov also said he wanted to introduce some way of charging foreign cars a fee for using Kyrgyzstan’s roads.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court blocked a bill that would have banned so-called gay propaganda, only a few days after Olympic athletes said it contradicted the spirit of the Olympic Games.
In their letter to the International Olympic Committee, the athletes criticised he law, similar to one brought in by Russia in 2013, and asked the Games’ governing body to pressure Kazakhstan into reconsidering the law.
The strategy now appears to have worked.
As ever, timing is everything. Kazakhstan is competing with Beijing to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. A decision is due in July and Kazakhstan would have been very keen to avoid any negative publicity surrounding its bid in the run-up to that announcement.
According to media reports, the Constitutional Council rejected the bill because if considered it vague and legally incorrect.
That, though, may not be the end of it. The promoter of the bill, MP Aldan Smayyl, said amendments to the current draft will be made and the bill will be submitted to the Parliament again soon.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s parliament, the Majilis, approved a decree on the delimitation of the Caspian Sea bed with Kazakhstan an important step, to smoothing out the ongoing row between the countries which ring the Caspian Sea on how to divide up its potential hydrocarbon riches.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s parliament unanimously approved a Tajik-China extradition law. China is increasing its influence across Central Asia, a region it considers to be its backyard.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rupert Colville, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that Kyrgyzstan should drop a draft law that will make cooperation between local and foreign NGOs more complicated. “This vague wording may put at risk numerous organisations working to deliver services or conduct human rights advocacy,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
