Author: Togolok Shakirov

The Kyrgyz Republic once again expresses support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan said, News.az reports. “Strongly advocating the inviolability of internationally recognized borders, the Kyrgyz Republic calls for the settlement of all issues through political and diplomatic means in accordance with the UN Charter and the fundamental principles and norms of international law”, the MFA statement reads. Meanwhile, Armenian separatists held the so-called “presidential elections” in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh on September 9. Earlier, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry called on the international community to strongly condemn the so-called “elections”. As noted in…

The head of the Kazakhstan Boxing Federation, Kenes Rakishev, promises to pay substantial prize money to the medalists of the Asian Games, which will be held from September 23 to October 8 in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. Bizmedia.kz reports this. Boxers who become medalists of the Asian Games will receive generous cash bonuses from the head of the Kazakh Boxing Federation Kenes Rakishev.The Kazakhstan women’s boxing team, coordinated by head coach Shamil Safiulin, is one of the first to travel to China. Before the start of the Summer Asian Games in Hangzhou, the athletes will conduct final training with…

The trade turnover between Kyrgyzstan and Belarus for the first half of 2023 amounted to about USD 45 million, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic Bakyt Torobaev told during a bilateral meeting with Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Anatoly Sivak, Azernews reports, citing Kabar. He said that the volume of mutual trade is growing every year. “So, according to the results of last year, the volume of mutual trade amounted to more than USD 110 million, and for the first half of this year it amounted to about USD 45 million. These figures indicate the possibility of…

Paris, Brussels (29/7 – 75) Kazakhstan has started arbitration proceedings against companies developing Kashagan and Karachaganak oilfields, over US$13 billion and $3.5 billion respectively in costs deducted as part of profit-sharing deals, its Energy Minister said on April 11. “I can only say these lawsuits have been filed in the interest of the people of Kazakhstan,” Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev told reporters, declining to provide any further details about the claims. The offshore Kashagan field in northern part of the Caspian Sea, one of the biggest discoveries in recent decades, is being developed by Italian Eni, British Shell, French TotalEnergies,…

World Health Day 2023 marked WHO’s 75th anniversary, as well as the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the WHO Country Office in Kyrgyzstan. Celebrations included an open-air campaign to kick off a year-long celebration of WHO75, organized by the Country Office, together with the Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan. Friends and partners were invited to join in sports events, games, concerts and competitions, but also to take part in medical consultations offering health advice, vaccination, and blood pressure check-ups. Source: World Health Organization

Uzbekistan has overtaken Kazakhstan to become Central Asia’s leader in renewable energy. Heavy investment into a few mega projects means that power-hungry Uzbekistan now has about 2.6 GW of green energy capacity, ahead of Kazakhstan – the first country in Central Asia to invest into renewable power. After its initial reluctance, the government in Tashkent has thrown itself into building a variety of wind and solar plants of increasingly large size. “We have built the largest solar farm in Navoi, which was opened by Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in 2022,” says Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, the CEO of the Middle…

Thirty-year-old Ayan Alisherov, a native of Kyrgyzstan’s southern Jalal-Abad region, was fighting in Russia’s ranks when he was killed. “My family received the news of [his] death on January 12, although as it turned out later, he had been killed on November 24, in the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Alisherov’s brother, Asylbek Abdibaliyev, told Kyrgyz newspaper Super-Info, referring to the Moscow-concocted separatist territory in eastern Ukraine. The run-up to this turn of events is a now-familiar tale. Alisherov had been serving a prison sentence since 2019 when recruiters from the Russian mercenary company Wagner arrived with a tempting offer. “Last summer, he said…

Kazakhstan, endowed with vast, exploitable hydrocarbon and mineral resources, has become an upper middle-income economy, according to the World Bank; its politics, firmly authoritarian, have been (with one big exception) generally stable. Kyrgyzstan, on the other hand, never emerged from the poverty of those early independence years. A large portion of the workforce toils abroad. Public services are low-quality or non-existent. And as for stability: Three times it has seen presidents chased out by street demonstrators, most recently in 2020. Yet it is Kyrgyzstan where people are happier. A new paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Happiness Studies by Dina Sharipova and Alma Kudebayeva,…

Altynai Botoyarova, 18, said in a January 17 Instagram post that she was sorry if her gesture in support of women’s rights offended anybody. “Maybe because of my young age, I was unable to convey my thoughts in the right way,” she wrote. The furor surrounds Botoyarova’s choice of the cape she wore during the swimsuit category of the pageant held on January 14. The cape carried the stylized image of a woman in traditional Kyrgyz dress being smothered by hands — an apparent allusion to the problem of gendered violence. If there was any uncertainty about the meaning of the image, Botoyarova…

Kyrgyzstan extradited Ukrainian citizen Volodymyr Kadaria over the weekend to Belarus, where he is wanted on unspecified charges, his lawyer told RFE/RL on March 6. Kadaria, 37, was born in Belarus as Andrey Kanavalau. He says he had to move to Ukraine in 2017, fearing for his safety as he administered an opposition website. He legally changed his name in Ukraine after he obtained Ukrainian citizenship. Kadaria came to Kyrgyzstan in August and obtained asylum in that nation in December, days before a Kyrgyz court ruled to extradite him. Source: RFERL