Tag Archives: society

Selective abortion growing in Armenia

YEREVAN/Armenia, JUNE 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — This was the third time that 34-year-old Anoush, who was pregnant, and her mother-in- law had taken a bus from their village to Yerevan.

They wanted to find out if Anoush would keep the baby and this depended on what medical staff would say.

“My husband and his family want a boy. They want a boy to inherit their family name,” said Anoush.

This is Anoush’s fifth pregnancy, she has two daughters already. If medical staff told her that she was expecting a boy she would keep the baby. If it was a girl she wouldn’t.

Selective abortions are still relatively commonplace in Armenia for women from the villages. There, the pressure is on to produce a son as an heir.

A project prohibiting sex selective abortion will be introduced by the Ministry of Health as it has become a major concern to the government.

A recent UN-sponsored said selective abortion was damaging the normal demographic make-up of Armenia. According to research in 1993 the ratio of male to female newborns was 106 to 100. In 2012 the ratio has widen to 114 boys for every 100 girls.

Donara, a 50-year-old doctor, said that many women were being forced into abortions by their husbands or the family of their husbands.

“Today couples are parenting to one or two children and they want one of them be a baby boy. Perhaps the problem would be solved if they had better social conditions,” she said.

Some of the debate in Armenia has focused around not telling mothers what sex their baby is expected to be until after 30 weeks of pregnancy.

For Anoush, though, there was joy and relief as the doctors confirmed that she was finally expecting a son.

ENDS

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

Tajik police target prostitutes

JUNE 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Dushanbe arrested 505 women for prostitution, AFP reported, a move that highlighted Tajikistan’s illegal sex industry. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported a 25% increase in women working as prostitutes this year. Most of these women, RFE/RL said, were driven to prostitution by poverty.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Bread prices spike in southern Kazakh city

JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Bread prices in Shymkent increased by around a third overnight to 50 tenge ($0.25) a loaf from 35 tenge, media reported. This is the second bread price spike in south Kazakhstan this year and it could spark protests. Regional government officials blamed bakeries for the price increase.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

Uzbek court releases prisoner

JUNE 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uzbekistan ordered the release of the critically ill prisoner Abdurasul Khudoynazarov, media quoted Human Rights Watch as saying. Khudoynazarov had served 8-1/2 years of a 9 year prison sentence for allegedly stirring anti-government protests around the city of Andijan, east Uzbekistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Armenians argue over statue to Stalin official

YEREVAN/Armenia, JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia intends to honour Anastas Mikoyan, a senior member of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s government, by erecting a statue of him in the centre of Yerevan.

Many Armenians, though, are appalled by the decision to build a statue to Mikoyan — a man accused of signing the death warrants of hundreds of his countrymen in the 1930s during the so-called purges. They suspect it is part of a wider plot to curry favour with Russia where Stalin and his associates have experienced something of a resurgence in popularity.

Armenia views Russia as a key ally, ensuring that there is a military balance with Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus and offering the sugar-sweet potential of joining its Eurasian Economic Union, which also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus.

With a hint of dry irony, Alina Abrahamyan, a 35-year-old historian, said: “This is another brilliant example of crawling under Moscow’s feet. Or it is just Moscow’s decision to erect Mikoyan’s monument in its Armenian suburb?”

Mikoyan was a Bolshevik and Soviet statesman who served under Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Leonid Brezhnev. Mikoyan was the only Soviet politician to remain at the highest levels of power within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and some revere him for this.

Some others also say that Mikoyan was an adept politician who was able to argue the Soviet Union’s position among the top statesmen of the day.

“Mikoyan was a politician equal to Churchill. It was due to him that the world escaped a third World War, as he was the famously able to calm the Caribbean tensions down,” 70-year-old Maya Manouelian said. “But at the same time we know that he signed executions of so many Armenians. He, though, did not have an alternative as his political status forced him to do it.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

Kazakh court upheld fine on Kashagan

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An appeals court in Atyrau upheld an earlier $730m fine against the consortium developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian for environmental damage. The fine was originally imposed for excessive gas flaring after an accident in September 2013.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Gas shortages triggered protests in Kyrgyzstan

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps playing into Uzbekistan’s hands, the shortage of gas in Osh has triggered anger towards the central authorities in Kyrgyzstan.

Under a Soviet engineered system, Uzbekistan supplies Osh and other cities in south Kyrgyzstan with gas. It cut supplies on April 14 because it said that Kyrgyzstan was not keeping to its side of a bilateral arrangement.

Uzbek officials have also declined to negotiate with their Kyrgyz counterparts, leaving people living in the south without supplies.

And anger is brewing.

Osh has seen a few demonstrations but protests have now broken out in Bishkek. People protesting against the lack of gas in Osh merged with others demonstrating against Russia’s Gazprom’s takeover of KyrgyzGaz in April and the government’s drive towards the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Police were forced to break the protest up but any ground-swell of anti-government feelings in Kyrgyzstan can have serious implications for the government.

It is not surprising that Uzbekistan is being a difficult neighbour. Uzbekistan has been highly critical of Kambar-Ata-2, the Kyrgyz hydroelectric project the Kremlin agreed to finance. In 2012, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said upstream dams such as Kambar-Ata-2 could trigger wars between upstream and downstream countries.

Gazprom’s acquisition of KyrgyzGaz is also a threat to Uzbekistan as it gives the Kyrgyz energy network more firepower. Gazprom has talked also of a north-south gas pipeline in Kyrgyzstan that would cut Uzbekistan out of its supply chain. This, though, is some way off and it will not end Osh’s gas crisis in the short run.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

President flees from Georgian breakaway region

JUNE 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alexander Ankvab, de facto president of Abkhazia, one of Georgia’s two breakaway regions, resigned days after protesters stormed his residence and forced him to flee.

The protesters had been complaining of rampant corruption and a struggling economy. Mr Ankvab, elected in 2011 on a five year term, had initially been defiant after he fled demonstrators on May 27 but, apparently, after a meeting with his Russian sponsors he quit. There is little doubt where real power over Abkhazia lies.

Abkhazia has now set a presidential election for Aug. 24 meaning three months of uncertainty.

Although Akhazia’s independence is recognised by only a few countries, mainly driven by Russian pressure, Georgia is a bystander in Abkhazian politics.

Georgia’s impotency was summed up by its minister for reconciliation, Paata Zakareishvili. In an interview with Georgian media he pointed out that Russia had sent Vladislav Surkov, a senior aide to President Vladimir Putin, to mediate.

“Moscow rules there on the ground,” he said. “They are communicating with each other through Russia.”

As with any power change in Georgia’s two breakaway regions, South Ossetia is the other rebel province, this period of flux is a potentially dangerous one for Georgia as it can trigger instability.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)

Almaty to become financial centre

JUNE 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan intends to build a centre for Islamic finance in Almaty, Central Bank chief Kairat Kelimbetov said. Mr Kelimbetov said the centre would be modelled on the City of London and offer potential investors tax and visa benefits.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)

South Kyrgyzstani protest for ex-PM

JUNE 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -An estimated 300 people in Osh, south Kyrgyzstan, blocked a main road to protest the arrest of former parliamentarian Ahmatbek Keldibekov. The authorities have accused Mr Keldibekov of abuse of office. Any sign of unrest in south Kyrgyzstan is a potential problem.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)