Tag Archives: society

Presidential candidates in Kazakhstan need health test

MAY 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a draft law to be voted on by Kazakhstan’s parliament, candidates for future presidential elections will have to undergo a medical test. Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev pushed through a raft of tweaks to the constitution earlier this year which he said were designed to shift power to parliament from the presidency in a move that makes Kazakhstan more democratic. His detractors have said that the changes tighten his control over power.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Czechs recognise Armenian genocide

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APRIL 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The parliament of the Czech Republic voted to recognise and condemn the killings of Armenians in eastern Turkey at the end of WWI as a genocide, drawing praise from Armenia and scorn from Turkey. Pushing for more countries to recognise the killings as a genocide is a key plank of Armenian foreign policy. Turkey has always denied the killings were genocide and has instead said that they were the result of chaos at the end end of WWI as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Uzbek museum opens exhibit in Moscow

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APRIL 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Arguably the most famous, talked about and least visited museum in Central Asia is going on show in Moscow until May 10.

The Savitsky Collection is usual housed in a museum in Nukus, western Uzbekistan, one of the most remote corners of the world and better-known for the Aral Sea environmental disaster.

Its curator was Igor Savitsky, a Ukrainian archaeologist posted to Nukus who secretly toured the Soviet Union collecting banned artwork.

The exhibition is hosted at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art. Reports said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was among the first to visit.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Russian soldier dies in Armenia

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APRIL 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Russian soldier died after being stabbed in the neck at a shop outside Russia’s military base in Gyumri, Armenia, media reported. Investigators have said it is too early to discern a reason for the attack. Gyumri hosts one of the largest Russian military bases outside Russia. In 2015 a Russian soldier killed seven members of the same family in a knife attack.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kazakh language clubs thrive as people explore national heritage

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ALMATY, APRIL 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In Kazakhstan’s cities, where Russian was once the dominant language, Kazakh language clubs are increasingly popular.

Alina Achilova, a student at the International Information Technologies University in Almaty, helped set up the Qazaqsha club three years ago. Based in a museum for national instruments, the club has broad appeal, attracting students, professionals and the retired. What they share, Ms Achilova said, was Russian as their first language and a desire to explore their own cultural heritage.

“I had many friends of different ethnicities and native Kazakhs who couldn’t speak or understand Kazakh language and would always ask me for help,” she said. “In Almaty I couldn’t find any places for them to learn Kazakh and thought it’d be good to open such a place.”

Language has once again been thrust into the political spotlight in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev said this month that he wants to switch Kazakh to the Latin alphabet from Cyrillic to broaden its appeal and to identify it more closely with other Turkic languages.

Since independence from the Soviet Union he has worked on building the cultural identity of Kazakhstan, promoting national heroes, cultural and language. Kazakh has grown in popularity and in Almaty it is far more widely spoken now than it was even a decade ago.

Some analysts have accused Mr Nazarbayev of trying to airbrush Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet out of Kazakhstan, but it is still an official language, still widely spoken in business and politics and is the main language in the north of the country.

Still, even among Kazakh’s supporter base, there are people who question whether the switch to Latin is such a good idea.

“I think it will be very long, expensive and problematic process,” said Yerke Maratkyzy, at Qazaqsha club.

Turkish is written in Latin, as is Uzbek, although in Kyrgyzstan, the Cyrillic imposed by the Soviets in the 1920s is still used, like in Kazakhstan. Before that, both Kazakh and Kyrgyz had been written in Arabic script.

For Erden Zikibay, a volunteer at another Kazakh language club called Bas Quso, the switch to Latin is a positive step.

“It will help bring together Kazakh people and Kazakhstani people to the Turkic and Western worlds, and increase popularity and prestige of Kazakh language inside Kazakhstan.”

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Armenia and Turkey’s version of century-old killings face-off in rival films

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YEREVAN, APRIL 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — It has been billed as the Battle of the Big Screen.

Two films, one produced with Armenian backing and the other with Turkish money, are going head-to- head to deliver the propaganda results asked for by their paymasters over fighting and killings in eastern Turkey 100 years ago.

Armenia accuses Turkey of genocide and the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the end of the First World War. Turkey has always refuted the charges and said that the deaths of the Armenians were linked to general fighting and chaos as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

Armenia’s government has been on a mission to persuade various governments to recognise the killings as a genocide. Many have, possibly motivating Armenia to switch its focus to foreign audiences.

This appears to be the driving motivation behind ‘The Promise’ which is released worldwide on April 28. And it’s been heavily-backed with a cast including Christian Bale, Charlotte Le Bon and Oscar Isaac. The story starts off in Istanbul in 1915 with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals. Bale plays an American reporter who is swept up in the action, heading out to eastern Turkey, witnessing murders by Turkish soldiers.

Despite its powerful cast and $100m budget, ‘The Promise’ has received mixed reviews, although perhaps the message that its backers were aiming to project gets through.

Peters Travers from Rolling Stone wrote: “Director Terry George delivers a scalding dramatization of the Ottoman Empire’s 1915 genocidal annihilation of its Armenian citizens, and then dulls it with a soapy, invented love triangle.”

But it’s the audience reaction which has been more telling and triggered more controversy.

Media reported that in October 2016, after only three small pre-re- lease screenings, the IMDb website said that around 86,000 people had rated the film with heavily polarised results. IMDb said that 55,126 voters had given the film a one star and 30,639 had given the film 10 stars.

In an interview with the Sunday Times Mr George, director of ‘The Promise’ said that he thought that the Turkey-funded ‘The Ottoman Lieu- tenant’ had been commissioned and produced to derail the impact of his film. It focuses on the same historical era and also features a strong cast, including Ben Kingsley and Michiel Huisman. It painted the killings of Armenians as the accidental consequence of war.

Like its rival film ‘The Promise’, ‘The Ottoman Lieutenant’ also attracted equal measures of praise and disgust from online audience reviewers.

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(News report from Issue No. 325, published on April 17 2017)

Floods hit the north Kazakhstan

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APRIL 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Heavy rainfall triggered floods in north and central Kazakhstan, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. Media reports said that 5,000 people have been evacuated to high ground. The worst hit area was around the town of Atbasar, 260km north of Astana.

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(News report from Issue No. 325, published on April 17 2017)

Turkmen president signs decree smoking by 2025

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APRIL 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov signed a decree that will ban all cigarette smoking by 2025, making good on his promise to turn Turkmenistan into the world’s first smoking-free country.

Mr Berdymukhamedov has already banned selling cigarettes, making a show of burning piles of them.

There were no specific details of what Mr Berdymukhamedov had in mind with his ban on smoking but the move does fit with his drive to promote health and exercise in the country. He has starred in weight- lifting videos and has been depicted out jogging.

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(News report from Issue No. 325, published on April 17 2017)

Corruption unfolds in Georgian football

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APRIL 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s domestic football is often plagued by illegal betting, media reported quoting European gambling watchdog officials. The oocrp.org website, a part-US funded anti-corruption website, quoted the head of FederBet, Francesko Baranca, as saying Georgia’s second division matches were often targeted for illegal bets.

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(News report from Issue No. 325, published on April 17 2017)

Penguins move to Georgian Zoo from Bristol

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TBILISI, APRIL 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nineteen penguins made themselves at home in Tbilisi’s refurbished zoo after being flown in from Bristol, southwest England.

The South African Penguins have been donated by Bristol Zoo to re- start a penguin population at Tbilisi Zoo, two years after a flood destroyed it. Other zoos around Europe have been donating animals to Tbilisi.

Christoph Schwitzer, Bristol Zoo’s director of conservation, said: “Animals regularly move to new zoos when they are old enough to join new breeding groups, and we are very happy to be able to support Tbilisi Zoo by donating a group of penguins to establish a new breeding group in Georgia as part of the European breeding programme.”

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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)