Tag Archives: society

EaEU membership promises cheaper mortgages for Kyrgyz

JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Speaking at a ceremony where government staff received free housing, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said that $100m of a $1.2b fund from Russia designated for Kyrgyzstan’s Customs Union entry would go towards a pot for cheap credit for citizens looking to buy homes.

“Having a roof over your head means having freedom and happiness,” said Atambayev at the ceremony. Kyrgyzstan may formally enter the economic alliance, which is set to become the Eurasian Economic Union, as early as autumn this year.

Housing is a politicised issue in Kyrgyzstan, with illegal land grabs affecting the country’s two main cities, Bishkek and Osh. Poor rural migrants have formed new settlements, often unconnected to municipal services like electricity, stretching for miles beyond both cities.

The Customs Union is also a highly politicised issue and Mr Atambayev has been at pains to emphasis the benefits of tighter relations with Russia and the joint Kyrgyz-Russian fund. With a start-up capital of $500 million in Russian credits, the fund has been heralded as a means to strengthen Kyrgyzstan’s industrial capacity and move it away from an economic model structured on re-exporting cheap Chinese goods.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Kyrgyzstan deported Chinese workers

JUNE 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s authorities have deported 25 Chinese migrants for working illegally at an oil refinery in Tokmak in the north of the country after a fight with their Kyrgyz co-workers, media reported. The incident highlights lingering tensions between Chinese workers and locals in Central Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Buying horsemeat in Kazakhstan

ALMATY/Kazakhstan, JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Globally, eating horses is controversial. The Italians, Dutch, Brazilians and French traditionally enjoy horsemeat, but in the United States it is highly taboo.

Americans balk at the idea of eating the animals that helped to settle the West. Horses have not been killed for human consumption on US soil since 2007.

In Britain, the so-called “horsegate” outcry of 2013, when supermarket burgers and sausages were found to contain large amounts of horsemeat, reviled British sensibilities triggering an avalanche of criticism over food security.

But in Kazakhstan, with its culture so heavily entwined with a traditional nomadic way of life, horsemeat is still very much seen as a delicacy and a status symbol.

At midday in Almaty’s Green Bazaar, the counters selling horse meat were doing brisk trade. Vendors slammed lumps of horse onto old sky-blue weighing scales to count the kilos.

Aisha, who was 43-years-old and a mother of four children, hovered over a table packed with cuts of horse. Intestines and ribs glistened next to prime rump.

Saiyan, the owner of the stall, said that she sells Aisha her fresh horsemeat three times a week. The horse meat cost 2,200 Tenge ($12) a kilo.

Dressed in a white trouser suit and yellow snakeskin shoes Aisha inspected the different cuts.

“My family eats a small amount of horse meat every day,” she said. “We don’t suffer from any flu or illness. This is why we eat it, for good health.”

Horsemeat in the Green Bazaar, however, is twice the price of lamb in the main markets. It might be beneficial to health and cherished by Kazakhs, but it is only obtainable to a privileged few.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Islamic extremists target Kazakhs

JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Islamic extremists who have captured several cities in Iraq under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) have been directly trying to recruit disenchanted religious Kazakhs.

In an interview with Tengrinews, a news website linked to the Kazakh government, political analyst Yerlan Karin said that he had seen videos put out by ISIS showing men with Kazakh passports being recruited and then trained.

He also said that in Syria, where Islamic extremists from Central Asia, had been fighting, units were organised along ethnicity. And this, experts have said, is particularly worrying as they may be more inclined to use the skills and experience learned in Syria back home.

“There have been such cases in Central Asia already: 25 Kyrgyz nationals who returned from combat zones in Syria and attempted acts of terrorism in their home country are now in prison in Kyrgyzstan,” Mr Karin said.

The authorities in Central Asia have been particularly nervous about the civil war in Syria and now the ISI attacks in Iraq, as they represent an easily accessible war zone for Islamic extremists to gravitate towards.

ISI have declared an Islamic Caliphate stretching across Syria and Iraq.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Kazakh President agrees pension reform

JUNE 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – It looks as if Kazakhstan has gently reformed its state pension plan without creating too much of a fuss.

Reform of the generous Soviet-era pension scheme is a particularly thorny issue across the former Soviet Union. Armenia’s government resigned in April because of protests against its proposed changes to the pension scheme and last year in Kazakhstan, a minister resigned after suggesting that women should work for as long as men.

Now though, it looks as if the Kazakh government has gently pushed through the changes it needs to make.

State media reported that President Nursultan Nazarbayev had signed into law a plan to modernise pensions.

The basic premise of the new pension plan, which won’t come into effect until 2016, is that employers will pay the equivalent of 5% of their employees’ salaries to the government. This, media said, will be used by the government to cover a current shortfall in the pension scheme.

So, in total, Kazakh workers will from 2016 effectively contribute the equivalent of 15% of their salary to the government’s pension pot. Employees will pay 10% and companies another 5%.

As the increased pension contribution comes from companies, rather than from workers, it’s unlikely to trigger public protests. Analysts, though, have said that the pension hole has become so big that the Kazakh government may also decide to increase direct employee contributions. That may cause trouble.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

British man jailed for child porn in Kazakhstan

JUNE 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uralsk, western Kazakhstan, jailed British oil worker Peter Baruch for eight years for child pornography related offences. Police arrested Baruch, who had worked in Kazakhstan since 2009, earlier this year after he was caught paying an underage girl to pose naked for him in his hotel room.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Tajikistan’s meat price rises

JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – President Emomali Rakhmon and key figures in his regime have criticised an “artificial” spike in the price of meat during the holy month of Ramadan.

As Ramadan began, Tajik media reported a jump in the price of a kilo of meat from $6-7 to $8-9. Other products saw smaller increases. Last Ramadan saw similar jumps, suggesting collusion in the country’s urban markets, where costs are highest.

Mr Rakhmon’s attack on the meat cartels should be understood less as a defence of religion — an embarrassing video of him dancing drunk at his son’s wedding became an internet sensation when it was leaked in May 2013 — and more as sensitivity over price changes that could precipitate instability. GDP is expected to grow by 7% this year, but inflation, at 7.7% for the first half of this year, is more than keeping up.

“Prices for petrol are lower than they have been in recent years, there is enough feed for the animals and the price of meat should not be rising,” said Mr Rakhmon.

The Mayor of Dushanbe, Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev, backed Mr Rakhmon’s stance emphasising the need to punish “shameless” butchers working out of the capital’s main bazaars.

Food assumes a special importance during the month of Ramadan when daytime fasting gives way to night time gorging. The Day of Eid holiday after the fasting period is associated with elaborate feasts.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Uzbek plumbers strike gold

JUNE 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Plumbers working in the city of Qoqan, east Uzbekistan, have found a gold bar weighing 13kg, media reported. The gold bar, found in one of the city’s sewers, has an estimated value of $800,000. It is unclear where the gold bar came from although it is thought to date from before the Soviet Union.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Azerbaijan reducing flaring

JUNE 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has reduced flaring off excess gas at oil producing plants by 50% over the last two years, Anita Georgia a World Bank official said in an interview with Bloomberg.The World Bank is pushing for countries to reduce flaring.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Kazakh journalist award for Assange

JUNE 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Union of Journalists has awarded Julian Assange, head of Wikileaks, a prize for investigative journalism, media reported. Mr Assange has been living in Ecuador’s embassy in London since June 2012. He is wanted in the US for divulging classified information and in Sweden to face charges of sex offences.

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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)