SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 100 protesters scuffled with police in Yerevan over electricity price rises for businesses. Activists said they believe President Serzh Sargsyan has reneged on his promise to protesters in June to subsidise planned electricity price rises by omitting businesses from the deal.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Bishkek, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev the Russian gas monopoly wanted 60% of the country to have access to gas.
Gazprom bought the Kyrgyz gas network in 2013 but this is its first major plan for Kyrgyzstan’s pipeline system. Mr Miller said the plan would cost $700m and mean building 2,500km of new gas pipes.
“We are working ahead of our schedule with the government to get Kyrgyzstan ready for the winter,” Mr Miller said at the press conference. He also noted that construction work on the final section of the Tashkent Bishkek-Almaty gas pipeline had started.
The Tashkent–Bishkek-Almaty gas pipeline is touted as a key component of Central Asia’s energy nexus as it will double capacity being sent from Uzbekistan to populated areas in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government has drawn up a draft bill which is says will do more to protect workers’ right although trade unions have said that it will reduce overtime pay and strain worker-company relations further.
The oil workers trade unions in western Kazakhstan have written to the government to ask it to change the draft labour law, setting up a stand-off between workers and the government.
Birjan Nurymbetov, the deputy minister for health and social development, told media that the new labour code was good for workers because it defended their rights and increased the criteria that an employer needs to test before he can sack an employee to 25 from 20.
“The new Labour Code fully protects the rights of employees against unfair dismissal,” he said.
The trade unions had a different view.
“The current project rate for overtime, holidays and weekends, is no less than 1-/12 to two times. This will be reduced to 1-1/4,” said Berdy Otebay, deputy head of the Aktau-based trade union Karazhanb- asmunaigas.
Relations between companies and workers have been strained since a protest in 2011 in the western oil town of Zhanaozen ended in clashes that killed at least 15 people. Companies have become increasingly wary of unions who have started to orgsanise workers more effectively, often securing pay rises.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government said that it was abandoning price controls on petrol. Heavy fluctuations in currency and oil prices have put these price controls under pressure.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – FC Astana became the first Kazakh football team to qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League by beating the more fancied Apoel Nicosia 2-1 on aggregate during a two-leg qualifying match. FC Astana scored with 6 minutes remaining of normal time in the second match in Nicosia.
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(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)
ALMATY/Kazakhstan, AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Reports from Uzbekistan said that Marinika Babanazarova, the curator and de facto defender of the world famous Savitsky Collection in Nukus, Uzbekistan, has been sacked.
Ms Babanazarova has held the job for over 30 years. She took over from Igor Savitsky himself and considered it her duty to keep the collection together despite pressure to split it up.
She confirmed to the New York Times that she had been sacked. Earlier reports said that the Uzbek authorities had fired her for stealing pictures and making forgeries, accusations she denied.
Relations between Ms Babanazarova and the Uzbek authorities have generally been strained. In 2011, they blocked her from travelling to New York to see the premiere of a film about the collection.
Savitsky was a Soviet archaeologist and painter who collected, often at great personal risk, banned avant-garde art. He travelled across the Soviet Union to collect the art, from dissident artists or from their relatives, and bring it back to his base in the remote city of Nukus in western Uzbekistan. There he was able to avoid the attention of the authorities.
The collection of roughly 90,000 pieces only achieved international fame after his death and the subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. It has also put Nukus, a scruffy town once classed as a secret because of its chemical weapons production, on the international art trail.
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(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)
AUG. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riot police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of dozens of young men in the provincial Azerbaijani town of Mingachevir, a rare display of public anger and frustration in Azerbaijan. The crowd had been calling for the head of the local police force to resign after a 22-year-old Azerbaijani man died in police custody two days earlier.
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(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)
AUG. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Astana, information ministers from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed to set up a news channel which will promote a so-called Turkic view of the world. These countries, and especially Azerbaijan, have become frustrated with what they view as biased coverage in Western media.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)
AUG. 17/19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Officials in Tajikistan appeared to ramp up their crackdown on opposition members by filing extradition requests to Russia and Moldova for people linked to the banned Group 24. Earlier this year the exiled head of Group 24, Umarali Kuvvatov, was shot dead in Istanbul.
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(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)
AUG. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At least 15 people died in Uzbekistan when a bridge they were watching a concert from collapsed, media reported. The accident happened in a park in the town of Urgench, west Uzbekistan. It highlights the poor quality of many public buildings.
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(News report from Issue No. 243, published on Aug. 14 2015)
