A second hostage crisis in a week has amplified concerns about ethnic tensions in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Police in Osh Province say a fight between locals and Chinese workers in the village of Kurshab on January 8 left dozens injured. The brawl reportedly started when Chinese workers, possibly intoxicated, accused a local resident of stealing a mobile phone. A fight ensued and the Chinese reportedly took a group of Kyrgyzstanis hostage. Some reports say local police were among the 28 injured in the fracas. All Chinese from the district have been evacuated to Osh city for their safety, KyrTAG reports.
The Chinese were working on a high-profile power line that will connect parts of southern Kyrgyzstan with the north. Due to the fight, the launch of the line has been delayed, said Musazhan Makelek, head of China’s TBEA energy firm in Kyrgyzstan. Makelek told 24.kg that the fight had nothing to do with the $208 million project, which is being financed by China, and blamed both sides.
Thousands of Chinese nationals work in Kyrgyzstan, most on infrastructure projects such as high-voltage electricity lines and roads, and as traders. Beijing has promised hundreds of millions in loans and assistance in recent years. But the Chinese presence and largesse is not without controversy. Many Kyrgyz are deeply suspicious and worry the giant neighbor could swallow their tiny country.
Finally, the BBC has devoted a story to the pressing international issue of what the Armenians think about Kim Kardashian, and what Kardashian thinks about the Armenians.
Thanks to her Armenian last name and roots, the American celebrity is big in Armenia.
As the BBC wrote: “Photos of Kim Kardashian are splashed across the front pages of magazine and adorn billboards, the walls of car washes and car parks in Yerevan, the country’s capital.”
But Kardashian’s relationship with Armenia, just like any of her relationships, is a complicated one.
Armenians, like other peoples in the Caucasus, tend to celebrate and embrace anyone or anything that emphasizes their importance for world culture or history.
(Some Georgians, for instance, are still proud that Joseph Stalin was their man; no matter if the dictator was known for misbehavior far worse than that imputed to Kardashian.)
Armenia is not short of famous people of Armenian descent (singer Cher, French bard Charles Aznavour, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian), but the nation is divided over Kardashian.
Some ordinary Armenians, though, find it hard to identify with Kardashian. Her flamboyant ways could not be more different from the customs of this traditional Caucasus country, where, as elsewhere in the region, restraint and demureness are expected of women, and females having sex before marriage (much less recording home sex videos) is frowned upon.
When Azerbaijan threatened in 2011 to shoot down flights to the newly built airport in Nagorno Karabakh, swift international condemnation forced them to back down. Now, with the long-delayed airport apparently close to opening, Baku has reiterated those threats. Reports News.az:
Azerbaijan’s Missile Defense Forces are keeping under control the entire airspace, including the occupied regions, a senior official of the Military Air Forces and Missile Defense Forces told APA exclusively on condition of anonymity.
He said the airspace is kept under control through the radar systems. Azerbaijani Army has been placed on alert in order to prevent any attempt of the opposite side.
“We record even the drones launched by Armenians in Karabakh airspace. Armenians’ attempts to operate unpermitted flights in this territory will be prevented. We are keeping under control all the processes and ready to prevent them. It is possible through various methods, the opposite side knows it very well,” he said.
The Armenian authorities who control the disputed territory of Karabakh hope that the establishment of flights in and out of the self-proclaimed republic will help mitigate their isolation; it's now only possible to reach the territory by a long drive through the mountains from Armenia.
EurasiaNet's photoessay from the other day about how the supra -- the traditional eating and drinking feast that is a bedrock of social life in Georgia -- is evolving and modernizing is highly recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand how Georgian society itself is changing.
Interested in getting more details about the story and the evolution of the supra, I sent several questions to its author, the Tbilsi-based Molly Corso, an American married to a Georgian. Our exchange is below:
1. What gave you the idea for this story?
I first started wondering about changes to the supra after I read a blog post on changing views toward the funeral feast on ISET.ge, the International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University. After I read it, I started noticing that, fairly often, when my husband and I met up with friends, there would be an argument about who should be tamada (the toast master) since no one wanted to be saddled with the role of drinking so much. Sometimes there would be little disputes over whether or not it is necessary to say all of the traditional toasts. I started to wonder if it was something isolated, just among my husband's circle of friends and relations, or if it was a wider trend.
2. Based on your own experience, how would you describe the role of the supra in Georgian life?
In the true holiday spirit, Abkhazia's separatist authorities have requested seniors to show up in de-facto government offices after New Year’s and certify that they are alive. Only those with vital signs will receive a pension, the de-facto officials said, reasonably enough.
To get the allowance, pensioners “need to turn up at the social security agencies and prove the fact of being alive,” is the blunt way de-facto Minister of Labor and Social Development Olga Koltukova put it.
Responding to the request, scores of men and women in their 60s and older spent the festive period between New Year’s and Christmas (celebrated on January 7) doing just that.
One elderly man told the Kavkazsky Uzel news service that he was happy with how fast the certification that he's alive was going. “This is good,” he said.
Abkhazia, which is hanging between the two worlds of recognized and unrecognized countries, has long had a complicated situation with pensions. With their statehood and local IDs considered illegitimate by most of the world, many, if not most, of Abkhazia's residents hold passports from Russia, the breakaway region’s patron state.
Some even hold three passports - Abkhaz, Russian and Georgian – and, therefore, technically, could be entitled to state benefits from all three places.
But it is not clear just how the de-facto Abkhaz officials are testing that these elderly individuals are, in fact, alive. Perhaps the procedure involves a photo ID and mirror. In any case, by all accounts, the death check will become an annual winter holiday tradition, to be observed right after New Year’s.
Georgia's new defense minister has said the country will eliminate military conscription and move to an all-professional army within four years, reports Civil.ge:
“We plan to move fully on professional army in four years. The term of compulsory military service will be gradually reduced [from current 15 months] to 12 months, and then we will fully move to a contract-based army,” said [Irakli] Alasania, who is also the first deputy PM.
“We should not be forcing anyone to be enrolled in the army,” he said, adding that only professionals with relevant education should be serving in the army.
Professionalization is one of the key steps in moving from a Soviet-style military to a Western-style one, but it's much easier said than done, and countries in the ex-communist world invariably take much longer to fully professionalize than they plan. To take just one example, in 2007, Georgia said it would move to a fully professional army by 2009. All of the former Soviet states, except the Baltics, still have compulsory military service, though Ukraine just announced today that it will end conscription this year.
And just a few months ago (while the previous government was still in power), Georgia actually increased the term of conscription from 12 months to 15. From IWPR:
Cleaning days are rarely happy times. Even less so when you've got to fight over who cleans where and with what.
For years, Armenians and Greeks have been battling over who has the right to polish a step or dust a lamp in one of the world's oldest churches -- Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, a 1,687-year-old structure built to commemorate the supposed birthplace of Jesus Christ.
Windows, walls, the roof -- you name it, there's been conflict. In December 2011, the scuffles required police intervention when Greek and Armenian priests furiously battled each other with brooms and blows over a "new" approach to cleaning. (The Franciscans, for their part, get to give "the general cleaning" a miss.)
But, finally, hopes are surfacing that 2013 might prove the year of a ceasefire.
A Ferghana Valley border clash this weekend yet again highlights the potential for violence in Central Asia’s most densely populated and ethnically diverse region.
Several hundred residents of the Uzbek enclave of Sokh reportedly attacked a Kyrgyz border post and took Kyrgyz citizens hostage on January 5 and 6, according to local news wires. Sokh (also spelled Soh) is an island of territory controlled by Uzbekistan and entirely surrounded by one of Kyrgyzstan’s poorest provinces, Batken.
Though Sokh is populated mostly by ethnic Tajiks, a minority in both countries, the episode is an unsettling reminder of the fighting between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan that left hundreds dead in 2010.
The incident started during the afternoon of January 5 when Kyrgyz border guards were overseeing the installation of power lines to the newly constructed border post near the village of Charbak.
Residents of the Soh enclave village of Hoshyar reportedly attacked the guards and the post.
Kyrgyz border guards fired into the air to disperse them.
On January 6, a group of residents from Soh returned and took six residents of the village of Charbak back into Soh as hostages.
At least seven others were captured while driving through the Uzbek enclave when the unrest broke out.
Russia's Interfax news agency cited witnesses to the events as saying, "At the start there were more than 100 people (Uzbek citizens) but their numbers grew…"
Kyrgyzstan's newspaper "Vecherny Bishkek" early January 7 reported the crowd eventually numbered more than 1,000 people.
The Uzbek citizens reportedly tried to seize weapons from the Kyrgyz border guards.
AKIpress reported several Kyrgyz border guards were injured in the clashes.
Throughout the former Soviet world, New Year’s is the time when Santa Claus – or Father Frost as he’s known in the Russian-speaking tradition – hands out presents. This year, Turkmenistan’s president played the role himself and gave his people the gift of cheap meat.
Freebies subsidized by the country’s natural-gas-generated revenues have long been a fixture of life in the country. For more than 10 years, Turkmens have received free water, household gas and rations of salt.
And now, in anticipation of 2013, butchers in Ashgabat have been selling 1 kilogram of meat for about $3.50 – that’s $2.50 lower than the normal price – triggering much excitement among buyers.
The government is in a constant battle with vendors over meat prices. Official prices shown in displays stand at $4.20 per kilo, although the real cost to buyers is actually $6. In food markets, as with the exchange rate for the Turkmen manat, there are often major discrepancies between official and real-life figures.
The meat discount follows an edict last week issued by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. In a Cabinet meeting on December 28, he instructed officials, including the trade minister and Ashgabat mayor, to “provide the capital and the regions with all required foodstuffs” to ensure the people of Turkmenistan spend their holidays in an upbeat mood.
For all the war-economy flavor of the injunction, the news was greeted with a surge of enthusiasm in Ashgabat.
On the morning of Saturday, December 29, the entrance was barred to the meat section at the city’s Tekinsky Bazaar, which led to the formation of a long line. That in turn drew unwanted attention from passersby.
There was a time when he was almost a god, but the memory is fading fast.
On December 21, 2006, the unexpected death of Turkmenistan President Saparmurat Niyazov was announced to the world. It is said he died on that day, although some suspect he may have fallen earlier, possibly the result of a nebulous palace coup.
The date is still officially recognized as the “First President Saparmurat Niyazov Turkmenbashi the Great Memorial Day.”
On the eve of the anniversary this year, current President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov spoke highly of his predecessor’s legacy. “The service of the first president of Turkmenistan was enormous and will always remain in the people’s memory,” Berdymukhamedov told a Cabinet meeting.
“Everybody that wishes to revere the memory of this extraordinary person can visit Kipchak [Niyazov’s home village] and perform a pilgrimage to the grave of Saparmurat Turkmenbashi,” the president added.
The state news agency tried to give the impression of a rousing turnout of clergy, village elders and crowds of citizenry.
Footage shown on television news offered quite a different picture, however. Not one person was shown laying flowers at the Niyazov mausoleum. Indeed, footage of the mausoleum showed no people inside or outside at all.
That’s hardly surprising, since Niyazov’s imagery has become an ever-decreasing commodity. Photos of the first president no longer appear in newspapers, magazines and textbooks. The only visible reminders in the capital or regional centers are the many statues that were erected under his rule.
Students do still study the Rukhnama, the tomes of Niyazov’s writings described in state propaganda as “holy works,” in one weekly class.
