NOV. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint venture headed by US carmaker General Motors (GM) opened an engine assembly plant in Tashkent, local media reported. The opening comes a few weeks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Uzbekistan. The joint venture also owns a car assembly factory in Andijan, east Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 66, published on Nov. 23 2011)
NOV. 12 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in October, Uzbek security services told the country’s leading artists, writers, musicians and film makers that religious references were banned from their work, the opposition uznews.net website reported. Uzbekistan is one of the most repressive regimes in the world. It is especially wary of radical Islam.
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(News report from Issue No. 65, published on Nov. 16 2011)
NOV. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in St Petersburg, PMs from the six countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) said they wanted to set up a development bank. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are members of the SCO which is lead by Russia and China. Many analysts see the SCO as a bulwark against western interests in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 64, published on Nov. 8 2011)
OCT. 22 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Tashkent and Dushanbe for talks on strengthening NATO’s supply chain through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to its forces in Afghanistan. Ms Clinton’s officials said she also warned both governments against excessive clampdowns on Muslims.
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(News report from Issue No. 62, published on Oct. 25 2011)
OCT. 14 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan sold cotton worth $550m at its annual cotton fair, local media reported, despite increasing scrutiny over allegations it uses children to pick the harvest. This is roughly the same amount as last year. Local media reported that none of the companies that signed deals at the fair in Tashkent were from Europe or the US.
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(News report from Issue No. 61, published on Oct. 18 2011)
SEPT. 28 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will buy gas from Kazakhstan at half the price it had been paying Uzbekistan, media quoted Kyrgyz acting deputy PM Omurbek Babanov as saying. In return, Kyrgyzstan has agreed to increase electricity supplies to southern Kazakhstan. There has been constant friction between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan over gas and water supplies.
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(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)
SEPT. 29 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Overriding concerns about its human rights record, US President Barack Obama asked Uzbek President Islam Karimov to boost the capacity of a NATO supply line running through Uzbekistan to Afghanistan, media reported. The US is shifting supplies to the Northern Distribution Network, from Pakistan where its relationship with the government has soured.
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(News report from Issue No. 59, published on Oct. 4 2011)
SEPT. 27 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Silk Road is back in vogue, at least at the UN’s General Assembly last week.
On the sidelines of the meeting, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and foreign ministers from Europe, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia were busy plotting a revival of the ancient trading route.
Media reports said the US sees the Silk Road as a way of boosting economic activity in Afghanistan from 2014 when NATO forces pull out of the country.
But if the Silk Road, which has always been a concept rather than a single physical route, is going to return to its glory days it requires a stable, prosperous and open Central Asia through which trade can flow.
Kazakhstan, with its anticipated economic growth of around 7% a year and increasingly open markets, is perhaps the only Central Asian state which fits that description. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are relatively closed and instability plagues Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Of course, a modern day trading system already straddles Central Asia. Lorries carry goods from China to Russia and on to Europe and pipelines pump oil from the Caspian to Western markets. It may not be the Silk Road with Afghanistan at its core that the US envisages, but it is a start.
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(News report from Issue No. 058, published on Sept. 27 2011)
SEPT. 19 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Human rights groups have been celebrating a double victory over Uzbekistan this month, a regime they revile for its authoritarian manner and alleged use of torture and child labour. Uzbekistan denies the allegations.
Both successes came through the fashion industry.
First on Sept. 9 2011, under pressure from human rights groups, New York Fashion Week cancelled a show by Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
Then on Sept. 12/13, 60 of the world’s top clothing labels — including British fashion house Burberry, Swedish high street retailer H&M, jean maker Levi’s and sports brands Adidas and Puma — said they had signed a pledge not to buy cotton from Uzbekistan that has been picked by children.
Rights groups have documented how the Uzbek state forces children to leave their classrooms for a few weeks each autumn to harvest the cotton. They estimates that up to 2m children are affected. Alongside gold and gas, cotton is one of the regime’s biggest foreign currency earners.
On previous trips to Uzbekistan, the editor of The Conway Bulletin has met university students in the capital Tashkent who said that unless they picked their quota of cotton, they could not graduate.
New York Fashion Week’s snub to Ms Karimova, is just that — a high profile snub. The boycott by leading clothing brands is altogether more serious.
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(News report from Issue No. 57, published on Sept. 19 2011)
SEPT. 9 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a major publicity coup for human rights activists, organisers of New York Fashion Week cancelled a show planned by Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. Human rights groups accuse Karimov of blocking democracy and of torture. He denies the accusations.
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(News report from Issue No. 56, published on Sept. 12 2011)
