On Wednesday February 3, Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State and Foreign Minister, Kanat Saudabayev spoke to a group of journalists and foreign policy community specialists at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. (transcript in English and MP3 in Russian here). This talk comes on the wings of Kazakhstan chairing the OSCE this year.  Saudabayev is in Washington for several weeks talking up Kazakhstan’s achievements in his capacity as OSCE chairman (RUS).

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Just a quick note to say that there’s an important story on the BBC by Rayhan Demytrie about Uzbek refugees in Kazakhstan.

“Welcome to my home,” he says opening the door to the small room his family occupies. He is an Uzbek man in his early 20s, seeking refugee status in Kazakhstan. Rustam is not his real name. He asked that his identity be kept secret because he fears for his security.

[...] “Under a false pretext they took me to their headquarters, they beat me and questioned me for many hours. They said that they would let me go if I agreed to serve my country.” Rustam was told that one of his tasks would be to provide a list of people who attended prayers at mosques.

[...] According to the UNHCR, 82 people from Uzbekistan were granted refugee status in Kazakhstan in 2009. Another 68 cases are pending. Kazakhstan, along with Ukraine and Russia, are the most common destinations for Uzbeks seeking political asylum. The UNHCR says there are more than 6,000 Uzbek refugees worldwide.

Read the story here.

Translation of Avicenna’s post (RUS).

I stumbled across a pretty interesting page, whose creators follow the motto “From each according to his ability, to each – free Internet!”

According to the organizers, activists from the movement “For a Free Internet,” they work in all parts of the country, which means that information is disseminated much faster. Want the link? Kaznet-Freedom.org. The authors themselves are calling it a real Island of Freedom. Read the full story »

Translation of neweurasia’s post (RUS).

Yesterday, the specialized Almaty district administrative court held a hearing for Roslana Taukina, who heads the human rights organization “Journalists in Peril.” She is being charged with article 373, section 3 of the Administrative Code for taking part in a flash mob on 6 January to support her colleagues, who have been imprisoned for their professional activities. Read the full story »

Translation of Adam’s post (RUS).

The Almaty Major Beltway is a complicated project with a complicated story. The government entered it into the list of projects to be completed using concessionary financing, with the hope that it would be complete by 2012. However, in September 2009 it was announced that construction would be postponed indefinitely due to the economic crisis. Proposals emerged to connect separate roads to create a kind of temporary beltway. Read the full story »

Just a quick note to say that there’s an important story on the BBC by Rayhan Demytrie about protests in Almaty.

Several hundred people have gathered in the Kazakh city of Almaty to protest against what they call “Chinese expansionism”.

The protest follows the announcement by the country’s leadership of a proposal to lease farmland to China. [...] Holding banners that read “Kazakh land is not for sale”, between 500 and 1,000 people gathered in one of Almaty’s parks. Addressing the crowd from a platform under a giant statue of Lenin, a group of opposition leaders urged the government to reconsider.

Read the story here.

Translation of mursya’s post (RUS).

Timur writes:

Saule Suleimenova (b. 1970, Almaty) is one of Kazakhstan’s deepest, most interesting and prolific artists. Her husband, Kuanysh “Kuba” Bazargaliev, is also an artist. Saule’s work has been displayed in the CIS countries, Europe and the United States. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was part of the legendary art group “The Green Triangle.” Besides doing visual art, she also writes poetry.

During the events of December 1986, 16-year-old Saule wrote the poem “Let Us Stand as a Wall,” which she read before the protesters in Almaty’s Republican Square. Some excerpts made it into Yuri Irk’s novel “Nation of Dreamers” and were also used by the punk band Rubberoid in one of their lyrics. Read the full story »

written by Alezandra Tsay

translated by Peretz Partensky

Part 1 here. Part 2 here.

Harvest and weep

The situation facing the producers is catastrophic. On the market there are practically no buyers, with the exception of flour mills, but they buy small quantities 50-200 tons. In all of Kazakhstan, there are about 600 mills. If last year they purchased about 5 million tons of grain, this year’s purchase of grain will be reduced to 4 million tonnes, due to the weakening of exports. Traders are not yet willing to close on purchases, waiting for further decline in the grain. The price has already dropped substantially. “Today, many agricultural producers, particularly small producers because of the ongoing chaos in the grain markets are in distress, literally on the verge of bankruptcy because they were forced to sell the crop below cost (at 10-12 thousand tenge per ton),” - Peter Dmitrienko points out in his deputy’s request to the Prime Minister. Read the full story »

Translation of Adam’s post (RUS).

It looks like this will be Zhovtis’ elegant release.

The Minister of Justice has proposed an amnesty. He believes it will have a considerable social impact, reducing expenditure on inmate upkeep and alleviating the burden on overcrowded prisons. Read the full story »

Translation of publicist’s post (RUS).

While the government is dealing with economic turmoil, companies and various organizations are looking for ways to cut costs. One way has been to cut employee wages.

However, a survey conducted by the WageIndicator fund shows that three quarters of respondents are opposed to the idea of getting paid less for the same amount of work during the crisis. Read the full story »