Weekly News Wrap

This week in Central Asia, the Asar Party announced that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter will run in the upcoming parliamentary election, in a move the opposition says sets her up for eventual ascension to the presidency, the AP reported. Asar Party’s spokeswoman, Sholpan Zakikh, said Dariga Nazarbayeva toped the list of 56 candidates that the party is fielding for the 19 September election. The move contradicts Nazarbayeva recently saying that she would not seek a parliamentary seat. Her 63-year old father has led Kazakhstan since before the collapse of the former Soviet Union, in 1991. He announced in May his intention to run for another seven-year term in the next presidential elections, scheduled for 2006. On Wednesday, the country’s three strongest opposition parties urged the government to release Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, leader of the opposition Democratic Choice party (DCK), who was convicted of corruption in 2002, and called for democratic reforms ahead of September parliamentary elections, AP reported. “I am firmly confident that he will be released,” Asylbek Kozhakhmetov, DCK’s chairman said. Zhakiyanov, considered a political prisoner by DCK’s militants, would be released next month after prolongued pressure from human rights organisations and the US government. Meanwhile, Zhakiyanov’s wife joined a proposal of representatives from opposition parties to initiate the creation of an international committee for protecting convicts’ rights, according to the Kazakh media. The statement carrying the initiative was made public by Kozhakhmetov, together with a co-chairman of the Ak-Zhol party, Bulat Abilov, and the leader of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan (CPK), Serikbolsyn Abdildin. “We are initiating the creation of this committee in order to draw the international community’s attention to the catastrophic condition of the prison system in Kazakhstan,” Kozhakhmetov said at a news conference in the capital, Almaty, noting that Human Rights Watch (HRW) had supported the idea. Staying in Kazakhstan, heavy rains on 19 July caused flooding in the village of Malyy Chigan in the Almaty region, the state Emergency Situations Agency (ESA) reported on Wednesday. About 100 houses and 200 ha of farmland were flooded. No causalities have been reported, according to a local news agency. The heavy rains also caused the Rgayty River to flood in the village of Nogaybay, in the southern Zhambyl region, flooding some 40 houses and 500 ha of crop plantations. In Kyrgyzstan, the opposition leader of the Ar-Namys party, Felix Kulov, called off a hunger strike after prison authorities promised to deliver court documents appealing for his early release, according to AP. Kulov and his party were planning to start a hunger strike on Thursday to protest at the authorities preventing Kulov’s appeal from being delivered to court on 12 July. Kulov was sentenced to 10-years in prison for embezzlement and abuse of power, but according to human rights groups his conviction in 2000 was politically motivated, preventing him from challenging President Askar Akayev during election that year. The European Union launched a new project to support small and private businesses in Uzbekistan, Uzbek Radio reported on Thursday. At the first stage of the project a great deal of attention will be paid to training highly-qualified and experienced trainers in this field. A total of 48 business trainers, such as businessmen, middle-ranking state officials and representatives of NGOs, are being trained in the country. Moving to Tajikistan, the British Ministry for International Development (DFI?D) granted a four-year programme to the country of some US $22.3 million. The programme will focus on the implementation of several small and large projects in various aspects of the Tajik economy. Graeme Loten, British Ambassador to Tajikistan, told Khovar news agency that the aid to be provided will amount some $5.5 million per year. “The British government will also provide assistance to Tajik citizens to learn English,” the ambassador said. On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a loan disbursement of $14.5 million for Tajikistan and said the country will need to make further improvements to deal with its high poverty rates, Reuters news agency said. The payout was under Tajikistan’s $96 million loan programme approved by the global lender in December 2002.