SEPT. 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s deputy General- Prosecutor Andrei Kravchenko has said he wants CCTV installed more widely in public areas, media reported. Kazakhstan is increasingly worried about home- grown Islamic extremists and may be looking for ways to monitor them.
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(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept.17 2014)
SEPT. 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Ashgabat, the Turkmen and Iranian defence ministers, declared that they would boost cooperation between the two countries. Perhaps most important when considering Turkmenistan-Iran military cooperation is the issue of the Caspian Sea which they border.
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(News report from Issue No. 200, published on Sept.16 2014)
SEPT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – South African parliamentarians have questioned why its government sold 50 sniper rifles to Turkmenistan earlier this year, media reported. Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier reportedly quoted from a Human Rights Watch report calling Turkmenistan one of the most repressive countries in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 4-5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – NATO took, yet another, tentative step towards admitting Georgia to its club at its conference in Cardiff.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish head of the US-led military group, said that a substantive package had been drawn up to help aspiring members join.
“Each aspirant has work to do in different areas and we will give them support they need,” he said. “We agreed on substantive package of measures for Georgia that will help Georgia advance in its preparations towards membership of NATO.”
This is good news for Georgia, and probably as good as it could realistically have expected. Ukraine is another country that wants to join NATO, as well as Australia, a more easy country for NATO to accept.
The 28-member NATO also agreed to boost Georgia’s military defences.
Georgia fought a brief war with Russia in 2008 and is dealing with two frozen conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The problem for the NATO member states is that they want to show a strong face against Russian aggression in the former Soviet Union but they also want to avoid inheriting a load of problems that could well drag them into somebody else’s war.
All-in-all, the NATO summit probably lived up to expectations from Georgia.
“We will have very important steps taken in regard of NATO standards by the next summit (in Poland in 2016),” said Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili.
It remains to be seen if Mr Margvelashvili is being realistic or just optimistic.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – China pledged to invest $16m in Kyrgyzstan’s, a move to shore up its support in Bishkek, media reported. Much of the cash will be used to build officers’ quarters in Bishkek. China has invested heavily in militaries around Central Asia over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s efforts to introduce biometric data are gaining momentum.
From 2015 many of the world’s most developed countries will not admit holders of non-biometric passports into their territories. It is highly unlikely that Kyrgyzstan will meet that deadline, officials say, but frequent travellers will be able to get theirs early.
Building a biometric database would also help Kyrgyzstan combat terrorism; drug and human trafficking.
But not everyone is keen on empowering the police. Dinara Oshurahunova, head of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, an NGO that promotes citizens’ rights said that the police would use the data to blackmail ordinary people.
“Biometric data is undoubtedly necessary but considering our law enforcement structures are unreformed and almost completely criminalised, I would not want them to have access to this data,” she said.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An armed group attacked a Chinese- run gold mine in northern Kyrgyzstan shooting a security guard and making off with 5kg of gold, media reported. The attack highlights still weak security across swathes of the country. Gold mines are a particular target.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The black flag of Islamic extremist group ISIS was draped momentarily over a bridge in Tashkent, media reported. Uzbekistan is sensitive to Islamic extremist action because of its long-running fight with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Media said that police quickly removed the flag.
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(News report from Issue No. 199, published on Sept. 10 2014)
SEPT. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh security forces are searching for a canister of radioactive cesium 137 after it was lost while being transported in the western region of Mangistau, media reported. The canister was being transported by car — it’s unclear where to or why — when it was lost or stolen.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
AUG. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Fighting between ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Uzbeks in a village in the south of the country injured at least two people, media reported. The authorities quickly issued a statement denying that the fighting was motivated by ethnicity although media reports strongly suggested that this was the trigger.
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(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)
