APRIL 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The new mayor of Bishkek, Kubanychbek Kulmatov, appears to want to paint himself as a progressive. On his Facebook page, Mr Kulmatov announced that he wanted to look at introducing a permanent bicycle lane in the city. As progressive as he is, though, Mr Kulmatov will still be behind Almaty which already has a dedicated bicycle lane.
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(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)
APRIL 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan named the speaker of the parliament, Hovik Abrahamyan, as the new PM.
Mr Abrahamyan’s brief is a tough one.
His predecessor quit abruptly at the start of the month the day after the Constitutional Court ruled that the government’s landmark pension reforms were illegal.
The reforms have been deeply unpopular, as are pension reforms throughout the world which try to make people work for longer and accept a smaller payout.
That mess, essential for sorting out Armenia’s damaged social security system, has to be sorted out.
There’s also the small matter of a vote of no confidence to deal with later this month. Armenia’s economy is stalling and its foreign policy at times feels adrift from its people — it has lurch towards Russia’s Customs Union at the expense of greater EU integration.
Mr Abrahamyan, a 56-year-old economist who has been speaker of parliament since 2008, is going to have to prove a tough operator in his new job.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Controlled by the state and with Ukraine’s revolution still fresh in the mind, media reported that mosques in Uzbekistan have been preaching about the joys of refraining from discontent and remaining humble.
Information leaking out of Uzbekistan points to a fairly crude attempt to control the masses through the mosques.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, funded by the US government, quoted one resident of the town of Andijan in the east of Uzbekistan who had listened to the Friday sermon at his local mosque.
“Complaining and criticising is testamount to betrayal,” the unnamed man quoted the imam as saying.
Unsurprisingly, Uzbekistan was opposed to the revolution in Ukraine, mainly because it didn’t want it to set a precedent.
Uzbekistan is also wary of religion. It blames radical Islamists for a series of attacks against government targets in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government has taken control of buildings in the centre of Tashkent previously owned by Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov, media reported. The buildings are just the latest assets to be taken from Ms Karimova who is reportedly under house arrest.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan said that he would not stand for a third consecutive term. His announcement comes just as his government are at a low ebb. Mr Sargsyan is facing low opinion poll ratings and had to appoint a new PM after his ally of six years. Tigran Sargsyan resigned this month.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — With the carrot of closer EU ties dangling before it, the Georgian government introduced a long delayed anti-discrimination bill to parliament.
The bill, whose passage is necessary to conclude a visa-free travel deal with the EU, is meant to provide protection against discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, colour, gender, religion and sexual orientation. In highly conservative, macho Georgia, discrimination still persists.
A first draft, prepared by the Justice Ministry together with civil society groups, was ready in January and it had envisaged financial penalties for state and private sector institutions that broke the law.
After consultation with various lawmaker, though, the new draft ditched these provisions.
Human Rights activist Tamta Mikeladze, who helped draft the original version, is disappointed. She said the Georgian Orthodox Church lobbied the government to water down the original version.
“I can’t say whether this will be enough for the EU to grant visa-free travel, but I can tell you that it’s not enough to protect minorities from discrimination,” she said.
The government wants to pursue EU integration and pander to the demands of the Church, a powerful group, which contains many anti-European elements. One of its major fears is that it will be forced to accept same-sex marriages.
It remains to be seen if this anti-discrimination bill will be enough to either persuade the EU that Georgia deserves visa-free travel and if it will improve the plight of minorities in the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s parliament approved extending the powers of the PM, media reported, a move that some analysts have said shows President Islam Karimov’s influence is waning. It is still unclear what powers have been transferred to the PM although Radio Free Europe said that parliament would control the cabinet’s activities.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia is considering launching a state-run development bank to support large-scale infrastructure projects, media reported. Former Georgian PM and head of the Georgian Dream coalition Bidzina Ivanishvili first voiced the idea of a Georgian Development Bank.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan officially joined the Russia-led CIS free trade zone, a rare collegiate move by the generally unilateral Uzbek leadership.
Russian President Vladimir Putin officially signed Uzbekistan in as a member of the group, a few weeks after Russia’s parliament had approved the plan.
The timing, for Uzbekistan, is slightly unfortunate. Uzbek president Islam Karimov agreed the move towards Russia in December last year when close ties were considered vital.
The United States was withdrawing from Central Asia, its main interest had been as a launch pad for missions to Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan no doubt wanted to balance China’s growing influence against Russia.
Uzbekistan pulls in most of its remittance cash from Russia, a vital plank of its economy.
Now, though, after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, Russia is seen as a global pariah and increasingly heavy sanctions are set to appear.
Still, as a simple free trade agreement, rather than a global statement of geo-political intent, it is still a useful move for Uzbekistan.
It allows for the free movement of goods in the free trade zone, abolishes duties and taxes and introduces anti-dumping regulations.
The other signatures are Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Tajikistan. They signed up to the agreement in 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament officially voted in Djoomart Otorbayev as the new PM. Mr Otorbayev is a former World Bank official who served as deputy PM in the previous government.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
