APRIL 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — With Russia’s annexation of Crimea firmly in mind, Kazakhstan’s parliament is likely to pass laws that will criminalise separatist action, media reported. Kazakhstan’s north is home to a large Russian minority which it worries will follow the example of Crimea and try to join Russia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
TBILISI/Georgia, APRIL 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – – Irakli, a dreadlocked Tbilisi street artist, was in a whiney mood.
“For two years it has been impossible to get real marijuana in Tbilisi,” he said. Marijuana grows naturally across Georgia, and is widely consumed recreationally in the south and northwest. In Tbilisi, however, strict drug laws and stiff sentences make it tough to find.
For Irakli, and many other young Georgians, the solution is something they call ‘bio’, synthetic marijuana sold over the internet. Manufactured in China and the Netherlands, it consists of chemicals in powder form or sprayed over tea and dried herbs so as to be easily smoked. Sold in $20 foil sachets marked ‘Incense’, orders are delivered to a Georgian post office.
Bio has taken over the Tbilisi club and party scene. In recent months, synthetic approximations of cocaine, ecstasy and other drugs have become more widely available, all marketed under the name of ‘bio’.
The craze has not gone unnoticed by the country’s authorities, which amended the drug laws to criminalize the possession and sale of synthetic drugs. But the police have no test for it unlike for real marijuana, said Irakli.
“They can’t test you and they can’t test what you are smoking,” he said. “Nobody knows what is in it.”
Whatever is in it, it can have lethal effects. In February a man died at a central Tbilisi nightspot. He was thought to have consumed a large quantity of synthetic drugs.
“Of course it’s more dangerous, but if the law changes people will stop smoking it,” Irakli said.
That seems unlikely. Pro-legalisation protests in 2013 may have attracted more than a thousand people but the interior ministry is staunchly against any relaxing of the drug laws.
For now at least the clubbers of Tbilisi will keep taking bio, and the associated risks.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the government’s flagship pension reforms were illegal, triggering a fresh crisis at the top of the Armenian political spectrum.
The ruling was a major blow to the government which has stubbornly stuck to its pension reform agenda despite increasing levels of public discontent. It also appeared to come as a surprise.
The following day Tigran Sargsyan resign as Armenia’s PM, although he did not link his resignation explicitly with the Court’s ruling. There have been perpetual rumours about his health and other job offers.
Later this month, the government also faces a vote of no confidence in parliament. Opinion polls have shown that its popularity has sunk to fresh lows.
And most of this unpopularity stems from the pension reforms.
Thousands have marched against changes which were introduced at the start of the year. The reforms stated that everybody born after Jan. 1 1974 would have to pay 5% of their salary into a state pension fund. The state has promised to match private contributions to the pension fund up to a maximum of $61 per month.
But now the Constitutional Court has ruled that the pension reforms introduced by the government restrict the rights of its citizens.
The problem for Armenia is, similarly to other countries in the former Soviet Union, it simply has to reform its state pension system to pay for its aging population and to compensate for the large grey economy.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
MARCH 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Ashgabat are stopping couples from kissing and holding hands in public, Chronicles of Turkmenistan, an opposition website based in Vienna, reported. Chronicles of Turkmenistan said police were trying to impose a morality code.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a similar move to Russia’s controversial law of 2013, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament published a draft bill that would outlaw spreading information about gay issues. The bill is currently only published online for public discussion but this is the first step to turning it into law.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
APRIL 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Under new rules designed to quash Islamic radicals, internet cafes in Uzbekistan will have to install surveillance cameras. The order was signed into law on March 19. Uzbekistan has increased surveillance generally, angering human rights campaigners.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 178, published on April 2 2014)
MARCH 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will launch new rules by end-2015 aimed at stemming the flow of cash from businesses to offshore accounts, media quoted the head of analysis at the Kazakh financial police, Olzhas Bektenov, as saying. Kazakhstan has been under pressure to tighten its anti-money laundering regulations.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Pavlodar, north Kazakhstan, jailed four Kazakhs who had trained with Islamic radicals in Syria, media reported. The Kazakhs were arrested in Turkey after crossing from Syria. Governments in Central Asia and the South Caucasus are increasingly concerned about people becoming radicalised in Syria.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz government has drawn up a six year plan to improve its aviation safety, media reported. Media quoted Erkin Isakov, head of the civil aviation authority, listing the problems. “Insufficient funding, low professional level of staff, employee turnover, discrepancy in standards, as well as an imperfect legal framework,” Mr Iskaov was quoted as saying.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a decision that provoked international condemnation from human rights groups, a court in Azerbaijan sent two opposition leaders to jail for organising illegal demonstration.
Human rights groups accused the court of being politically motivated, a charge they have used against Azerbaijan’s judiciary often over the last few years.
The US State Department backs up this analysis. Earlier this year in its annual global human rights assessment, it said that the authorities were increasingly persecuting opposition groups.
A court spokesman said that Tofig Yagublu, deputy head of the opposition Musavat party, and Ilgar Mammadov, leader of the Republican Alternative human rights group, were sentenced to five and seven years in prison.
Police arrested them in February 2013 and accused them of organising unrest in the town of Ismailli in January 2013. The unrest in Ismailli, 200km northwest of Baku, was the worst during President Ilham Aliyev’s 11 years in power.
Giorgi Gogia, senior researcher in the South Caucasus for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, wrote a withering analysis of the verdicts.
“Another day, another imprisonment of prominent government critics in Azerbaijan,” he said.
“Instead of looking into the underlying causes of such an expression of mass rage and there are many, starting with astounding government corruption the authorities decided to find convenient scapegoats who fit the false narrative of critics-as-enemies.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
