FEB. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to approve a $45m loan next month to finance the reconstruction of road and bridges along the Georgian border, Azerbaijani media reported. The ADB has been instrumental in pushing ahead plans to rebuild Azerbaijan’s Soviet-era infrastructure.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Roughly 500 students at Baku University demonstrated against a new credit system which they said was just another way of trying to increase tuition fees, media reported. According to reports, police detained 12 students. Sizeable protests against the authorities in Azerbaijan are relatively rare.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s delegation at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in Russia took the chance to plug Almaty for the 2022 event. The Kazakh delegation pledged that they would not spend hugely on new facilities as Sochi had. Almaty is competing against Lviv in Ukraine, Oslo, Beijing and Krakow in Poland.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The revolution that swept Viktor Yanukovich from power in Ukraine has reverberated, gently, around the former Soviet Union.
In Almaty, the financial capital of Kazakhstan, roughly two dozen people gathered outside the Ukrainian consulate last week after news emerged that snipers had shot dozens of people in Kiev. They lit candles and sang the Ukrainian national anthem. Social media filled with statements of solidarity and posts that shared the latest news, both in Russian and in Kazakh.
Although analysts have said that the revolution in Ukraine may trigger anti-government demonstrations in other parts of the former Soviet Union, apart from the vigil outside the Ukrainian consulate in Almaty, the reaction on the streets was muted.
This was partly, said political observer Adil Nurmakov of blogbasta.kz, because most legal forms of protest in Kazakhstan had been extinguished.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — More employers in Kazakhstan said they would increase workers’ salaries after the 20% devaluation of the tenge this month. Copper producer Kazakhmys and the government of Aktobe region both said they would increase salaries by 10%. The devaluation has stoked fears of inflation.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Customs officials in Malta detained a hunter returning from a trip to Azerbaijan after he tried to smuggle 50 dead birds into the country, media reported. Fifteen of the birds — which included bustards, tits, egrets and wildfowl — are listed as protected species.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Clearly wary of any backlash, Uzbekistan’s state controlled media have avoided all mention of Ukraine’s revolution. Uzbekistan has one of the most tightly controlled media scenes in the world. Exiled opposition websites reported that, as usual, Uzbek media concentrated on reporting President Islam Karimov’s latest proclamations.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A 41-year-old man set himself alight in Azerbaijan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, the fifth self-immolation in the country since December. The man, Huseyn Mammadov, reportedly set himself alight outside the interior ministry office in Nakhchivan region after his taxi permit had been withdrawn by officials.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Around 1,000 people protested in Azerbaijan against government compensation for homeowners due to lose their home as part of an urban re-generation scheme. The authorities in Azerbaijan want to demolish and re-build parts of Baku but residents say they are being offered only a fraction of the market price for their homes.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
FEB. 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Betraying ordinary Kazakh’s nervousness and distrust after the devaluation of the tenge on Feb. 11 by 20%, rumours of a banking collapse spread fast via SMS and triggered a run on several banks.
The banks — Bank Tsenter Kredit, Alliance Bank and Kaspii Bank — all denied that they were in danger of collapsing.
At branches of Kaspii Bank, though, hundreds of people still queued throughout Feb. 18 and Feb. 19 to withdraw their savings despite assurances from the Central Bank that there was no reason to panic.
Saltanat was one of roughly 100 people queuing to withdraw their savings from a Kaspii Bank branch in Almaty.
“They said there won’t be any problem, but why should I believe them?” he said. “They said nothing about the devaluation either. They’re not going to take our money away!”
Confidence in Kazakhstan’s banking sector and the tenge is low.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 172, published on Feb. 19 2014)
