JAN. 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s economy is booming, Uzbek President Islam Karimov told ministers. Last year, Mr Karimov said, Uzbekistan’s economy grew by 8%, boosted by foreign investment. But while Mr Karimov’s numbers might suggest a booming economy, it doesn’t feel that way on Uzbekistan’s streets.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
JAN. 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting the importance of finding work in Russia, Uzbeks are adding Russian names to passports. By adding a patronymic and its suffix -ovna or -ovich to their names, Uzbek youth believe they will more easily register with the Russian authorities and find work there, Radio Free Europe reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
JAN. 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Islam Karimov has expanded the number of crimes that can be punishable under anti-terrorism laws, local media reported.
The authorities have said this move was necessary to protect the country from Islamic militants who have previously attacked government targets. Human rights defenders, though, said the expansion was an excuse to lock up more people and silence the government’s critics.
It will now be punishable by up to seven years in prison if a person is convicted of the loosely defined term of training for a terrorist act.
The expansion of the state’s anti-terrorist powers came shortly after the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) released its annual global report.
HRW was bleak on Uzbekistan.
“Uzbekistan’s human rights record remained abysmal across a wide spectrum of violations,” HRW said in its report.
HRW also accused the United States and the EU of ignoring these human rights violations in return for help extracting their soldiers from Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
JAN. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank and Azerbaijan signed a $42m deal for waste management projects, media reported. Analysts have said a plan is needed to deal with a projected doubling of waste expected in Azerbaijan over the next 20 years generated by a combination of income and population growth.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vugar Gashimov, a 27-year-old Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster, died from a brain tumor in a German hospital.
Azerbaijanis revere their chess champions and news of Mr Gashimov’s death reverberated around Baku and triggered a government reaction. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev sent a letter of condolences to Mr Gashimov’s family and Azad Rahimov, the minister of sport, attended his funeral.
Chess is important to Azerbaijan and in the wider South Caucasus.
In contrast to most other sports, Azerbaijan is something of a world-beater in chess. Garry Kasparov, considered one of the greatest ever chess players was born in Baku.
In central Baku, 22-year-old Irada Nagiyeva, a student, was on her way to lunch. She summed up the impact of Mr Gashimov’s death to Azerbaijan.
“I was quite upset about the death of Vugar Hashimov,” she told a Conway Bulletin correspondent. “He was a champion that represented us worldwide.”
Mr Gashimov was considered an exciting, creative chess player, often willing to make daring moves that others would avoid playing.
His highest international ranking was sixth in the world in November 2009 and he had ranked at tenth in January 2012 before ill health forced him to retire from the sport.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan plans to test the genes of children to determine which will make world-beating athletes, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting Rustam Muhamedov, director of genetics at Uzbekistan’s Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry. While controversial, genetic testing is not banned.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vugar Gashimov, a 27-year-old Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster, died while receiving treatment for a brain tumour in Germany. Chess is an important and widely followed sport in Azerbaijan and Mr Gashimov’s death was heavily reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government will relax rules for migrant workers from February 2014, media reported. Migrant workers will be allowed to stay in Kazakhstan for a year if they hold a bank account. The labour ministry said there were 174,000 migrant workers in Kazakhstan last year. It estimated that this would rise to 500,000 by 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government has quietly increased the price of fuel by 20%, media reported. The new prices came into effect from Jan. 10.
The main cause of the petrol shortages in Uzbekistan are problems at the country’s largest oil refinery in Ferghana.
It’s still unclear what impact this price rise will have on Uzbek society. Tension is already rising because of price increases for basic utilities and food. Last year in Samarkand a group of women held a rare anti-government protest. Still, in Uzbekistan’s tightly controlled society there has so far been few signs of dissent.
And Uzbeks have already been adapting to steadily rising fuel prices.
The main problem for drivers is a deficit of oil in Uzbekistan. This means that state-owned UzGazOil has had to import and refine oil at more or less commercial rates, pushing up the price of petrol.
Reports from Uzbekistan have said that many drivers have already modified their vehicles to run on gas, which is cheaper, rather than petrol. This can be a dangerous practice as these gas fired wagons are prone to exploding.
The Uzbek authorities announced the petrol price rise quietly and official media didn’t cover the event.
But there was more bad news for drivers. From April, the government is introducing a 3% so-called road maintenance tax on new cars.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Mukhtarbay Otelbayev, a Kazakh mathematician based in Astana, has solved the Navier-Stokes equation, dubbed “one of the problems of the millennium”, media reported. Mr Otelbayev’s claim has not yet been independently verified.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
