GEORGIAN PM SAYS TBILISI WILL NOT RESTORE RUSSIA TIES SOON
1 November
Georgia's new Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili says he will not restore diplomatic ties with Russia until Moscow reverses its decision to recognize the independence of two Georgian breakaway regions. Moscow has deployed thousands of troops in Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since recognizing them as independent after the Georgia-Russia war in 2008. Ivanishvili told a news conference in Tbilisi that, "as far diplomatic [relations] are concerned, it can't happen quickly." Ivanishvili said, however, that restoring trade and cultural links with Russia was a "more realistic" goal. His Georgian Dream coalition defeated President Mikheil Saakashvili's party in a parliamentary election a month ago. Ivanishvili has repeatedly blamed Saakashvili for provoking the conflict. (RFE/RL)
GEORGIA MINISTER SUGGESTS RECOGNITION OF ID DOCUMENTS ISSUED BY TWO BREAKAWAY REGIONS
2 November
Georgia's reintegration minister says Tbilisi should recognize identification documents issued by the authorities of the country's two breakaway regions. In an interview with Russia's "Kommersant" newspaper, Paata Zakareishvili said the recognition of the documents issued by separatist authorities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia would allow greater freedom of travel between the two regions, Georgia, and Russia. The minister's statement comes a day after former Georgian Ambassador to Russia Zurab Abashidze was appointed as the prime minister's envoy for normalizing relations with Russia. After his appointment, Abashidze said that Tbilisi had no immediate plans for restoring diplomatic relations with Moscow. Tbilisi broke diplomatic ties with Moscow after the Russian-Georgian military conflict in August 2008. The next month, Moscow recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. (RFE/RL)
NEW AZERBAIJANI LAW ON UNSANCTIONED PUBLIC GATHERINGS
2 November
Azerbaijan's parliament has adopted amendments to the law on public gatherings which significantly increase fines for illegal demonstrations. The fines have been increased to up to $10,000 for organizing or participating in unsanctioned public gatherings. Before, the maximum fine was $640. Carrying firearms, knives, or explosives at such gatherings could now be punished by up to three years' imprisonment. Earlier on November 2, Baku police dispersed dozens of activists protesting the amendments. Several activists were detained and later released. Earlier this week, human rights group Amnesty International called on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to "end the crackdown on dissent and to ensure that all citizens are able to enjoy their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association." (RFE/RL)
RUSSIAN PM: PUSSY RIOT MEMBERS SHOULD BE RELEASED
2 November
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says the two jailed members of the feminist punk performance collective Pussy Riot should be released. Medvedev said on November 2 he disagreed with the group's actions, but that members Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova "have already been in jail long enough." The women were transferred last week to penal colonies in Mordovia and Perm to begin serving two-year sentences. They were convicted of hooliganism for staging a protest against President Vladimir Putin inside Moscow's largest Orthodox cathedral. Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova had already served more than seven months in pretrial detention together with fellow member Yekaterina Samutsevich. Her sentence was later suspended. The case has drawn international condemnation, with many observers calling the prison terms an attempt by Putin to silence his critics. (RFE/RL)
FOUR KILLED IN SOUTH KYRGYZ MARKET COLLAPSE
4 November
Four people have been found dead in the ruins of a market in the southern Kyrgyz region of Osh following the collapse of a concrete floor on November 3. Five people have been hospitalized, Kyrgyz officials said, and rescue operations are continuing. The collapse occurred in the restrooms area of the Kara-Sui market, the largest market in southern Kyrgyzstan. All of the victims were reported to be Kyrgyz nationals, although the market is usually crowded with merchants from neighboring Uzbekistan and China as well. (RFE/RL)
DAGHESTAN BECOMES HOTBED OF NORTH CAUCASUS INSURGENCY
5 November
Suicide bombings in police stations. Muslim clerics gunned down in broad daylight. Shoot-outs between insurgents and security forces. These have become run-of-the-mill headlines in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region of Daghestan. Last week, unidentified gunmen shot dead an imam and two of his male relatives as they drove to morning prayer in the Daghestani town of Derbent. He is at least the fifth Muslim leader slain this year. Analysts say Daghestan has unquestionably deteriorated into the most unstable republic in the North Caucasus, a region wracked by conflict and insurgency. But why Daghestan? What are the factors that set the republic apart? Like Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and to a lesser extent Chechnya, Daghestan is a hotbed for the militant Islamist insurgency led by Doku Umarov that seeks to create a so-called pan-Caucasus Islamic caliphate. Widespread unemployment, poor living standards, rights abuses, and resentment of local and federal authorities have spurred new generations to join the insurgency -- or "to go to the forest," as locals say. The difference in Daghestan's case, however, is the cachet that Islam wields in the republic. Analysts say more radical Islamic ideologies such as Salafism have gained a greater foothold in Daghestan than in other North Caucasus republics. ??This, according to Aleksei Malashenko, a Caucasus expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center, sets Daghestan apart from its neighbors. "The difference consists in the [presence of] very strong nonofficial Islam and very strong Islam within the opposition," he says. "There is also a difference in the level of Islamization. Daghestan is the most Islamized republic in the region." This distinction aggravates many of the riffs in Daghestan. It cuts directly along the fault lines that divide adherents of traditional from nontraditional Islam; the Islamic opposition from the local administration; and the adherents of Shari'a law from the population that opposes cultural and social drift from Russia's orbit. The killing of the Salafi imam on October 30, for example, illustrated the tensions between the Sufi and Salafi communities. Analysts say it appears to have been a revenge attack by powerful Sufi groups. Kalimulla Ibragimov, 49, was well known locally as an imam who worked at an unregistered mosque in Derbent that was dedicated to the Salafi branch of Islam, which is considered more radical than Sufism and is shunned by the authorities as extreme. Mairbek Vatchagayev, a North Caucasus analyst for the think tank Jamestown and head of the Paris-based Center for Caucasus Research, says Ibragimov's assassination had all the hallmarks of a revenge attack. He notes that Ibragimov's assassination fell only days after Sufi groups marked one year since Sufi Sheikh Sirajuddin Israfilov was killed. "I think we can talk about an element of revenge here from proponents of Sufi who decided a year after the death of their imam to carry out a strike on those for whom they believe their sheikh may have been killed," Vatchagaev says. These kinds of attacks are likely to radicalize more moderate Salafists and stymie any reconciliation with adherents of the more mystical Sufi branch of Islam. Ibragimov, in turn, was dubbed a "martyr" by the Kavkaz Center website, which is widely viewed as a rebel mouthpiece. Analysts say imams make for attractive targets because they are high-profile public figures and also physically vulnerable to attack. In contrast with those in Chechnya, imams in Daghestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria do not receive official armed guards. Malashenko estimates that in the last six years, over 37 imams and muftis have been killed across the North Caucasus from Karachai-Cherkessia to Daghestan. On October 16, President Vladimir Putin called on Russia's security and law enforcement officials to work "as decisively as possible" to quash the insurgency ahead of key events like the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. Putin also confirmed what many analysts have long claimed -- that the Russian military is involved in the "counterterrorist" operations in Daghestan. Malashenko speculates that the use of the army will not alleviate the situation. He says the move instead underlines the failure of Kremlin policy in the republic. "The only way that exists in Putin's brain is to fight -- to send more and more military men," he says. "It leads to nothing. They have done this so many times and in practice it proves that there is a civil war in Daghestan." Putin estimated that Russian special operations have caught 479 "bandits" and killed 313 "terrorists," including 43 insurgency "leaders" in the North Caucasus. But Vatchagayev says these operations are not having a noticeable impact in Daghestan. "If we look at Ingushetia or Kabardino-Balkaria, then we can see an element of stagnation -- the authorities are trying to counteract and are carrying out very serious blows on the insurgents. Even if the situation is not under control there, the authorities have managed to stop the increase in the actions of the insurgents," he says. "But in Daghestan for the last four years all we have seen is an increase," he continues. "We have not reached the peak. I think there is a long way to go till the peak." (RFE/RL)
UZBEKISTAN JAILS THREE WOMEN FOR SPYING FOR TAJIKISTA
5 November
Uzbek officials have announced that three women from the southeastern region of Surhondaryo have been jailed for spying for neighboring Tajikistan. A televised statement on November 5 said the three women had received between 14 and 15 years in jail. Investigators say two of the women are Uzbek citizens and the third is a Tajik-born woman without any citizenship. Investigators say they received payments from the Tajik secret services for information about Uzbek military and law-enforcement buildings. No other information has been made public. Uzbek-Tajik relations have been strained for years due to disputes over water and energy resources as well as transit routes. Tashkent has cut electricity and natural-gas supplies and closing road and railway connections between the two countries in recent years. (RFE/RL)
KAZAKHSTAN TO OPEN CONSULATE IN KAZAN
5 November
The president of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, has said that a Kazakh consulate would be opened soon in the Tatar capital, Kazan. Minnikhanov made the statement in Kazan during a meeting with a visiting Kazakh delegation led by the chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Economic Chamber, Timur Kulibaev. The two sides discussed bilateral economic cooperation in machine building, energy, and trade. Kazakhstan has deep-rooted economic, historical, linguistic, and cultural ties with nearby Tatarstan. (RFE/RL)
RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS TOP SYRIAN DEFECTOR IN JORDAN
6 November
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has held a rare meeting with a high-level Syrian opposition figure. Lavrov met with former Syrian Prime Minister Riad Hijab in Amman on November 6. Hijab defected to Jordan in August. After the meeting, Lavrov accused the opposition of prolonging the bloodshed by demanding that President Bashar al-Assad step down before talks on ending the conflict in Syria, which began during Arab Spring-style uprisings in early 2011. Lavrov also said rebels fighting against Assad's regime have obtained 50 shoulder-launched Stinger missiles. He did not say how they obtained the U.S.-made weapons. Hijab said that Assad's removal was "the only way out." Syria's state-run news agency, meanwhile, reported that "terrorists" killed Muhammad al-Laham, the brother of Syrian parliament speaker Jihad al-Laham, in Damascus on November 6. Russia and China have resisted Western-led efforts to punish the regime in Damascus for its role in the bloodshed, which some activists say has taken at least 35,000 lives. The United Nations puts the death toll above 20,000. British Prime Minister David Cameron has said he would agree to granting Assad safe passage out of Syria to end the bloodshed in the country. He also reportedly said that he was "certainly not offering [Assad] an exit plan to Britain" and that he would "favor [Assad] facing the full force of international law and justice for what he's done." (RFE/RL)
RUSSIA TO FINANCE VIETNAM'S FIRST NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
7 November
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has announced that Russia is to lend Vietnam some $10 billion to build that country's first nuclear power plant. Medvedev made the announcement on a visit to Hanoi where he is holding talks on boosting trade ties. Medvedev also said the two countries have decided to start negotiations on a free trade agreement. He said bilateral trade could reach $7 billion by 2015, up from less some $2 billion in 2011. Medvedev also called for increased cooperation in oil and gas exploration, including more joint investment among the countries' energy companies. Medvedev arrived in Hanoi from neighboring Laos where he attended a regional Asia-Europe meeting. (RFE/RL)
KYRGYZ PARTY SHOWS ITS COLORS, AND THEY LOOK RUSSIAN
8 November
For years, Kyrgyzstan's Ar-Namys (Dignity) party opted for a simple white-on-blue pattern for its banners and flags. But with the country preparing for key local elections later this month, the party has rolled out a new design that has critics crying foul. The fresh look, seen on billboards and posters throughout the capital, Bishkek, shows the party's top candidate, Omurbek Suvanaliev, photographed against a striped background that bears a marked resemblance to the white-blue-and-red of the Russian flag. Observers say the redesign is a blatant attempt to win votes from Kyrgyzstan's roughly 200,000 ethnic Russians. Activist Ilya Lukash says it's not the first time Ar-Namys and party leader Feliks Kulov have sought to create a visual association with Russia. "Ar-Namys has been doing things like this for a long time. [Ahead of parliamentary elections] in 2010, for example, the party used a photograph in which Feliks Kulov was shown together with Dmitry Medvedev," Lukash says. "These things show that Ar-Namys is a pro-Russian party. So it's hard to say that the use of the Russian colors is a simple coincidence." The image of the Ar-Namys leader with the then-Russian president proved so provocative that the Kyrgyz parliament later imposed a ban on such photographs for campaign materials. But the ban stopped short of prohibiting other, more subtle, forms of association -- like color schemes that may or may not resemble another country's flag. Ar-Namys, which was formed in 1999, has never made a secret of its close ties to Moscow. United Russia, the ruling party of President Vladimir Putin, granted the party a valuable endorsement ahead of the 2010 parliamentary vote. And Kulov, a onetime prime minister and mayor of Bishkek, is among a small group of Kyrgyz politicians to openly maintain ties with Moscow as its seeks to restore the Kremlin's historical influence in Central Asia. Abdymomun Mamaraimov, a former member of the Kyrgyz Central Election Commission, condemned the new Ar-Namys promotional materials, saying, "it's wrong to involve another country in our own internal affairs just because of political sympathies." Suvanaliev -- a former interior minister known as the "Kyrgyz Cattani," after the police chief hero of the Italian TV series "La Piovra" -- has dismissed any intentional resemblance between the party posters and the Russian flag. "The Russian flag is composed of three colors: red, blue, and white. We have just two colors. Probably when they hung the posters, the borders looked white," Suvanaliev said. "And that's how the whole debate got started." Suvanaliev accused party critics of engaging in "dirty PR," but also noted that Ar-Namys would soon change the color of its flag to white and red. The November 25 elections will determine the composition of city and village councils throughout Kyrgyzstan. But for most parties, the key contest is the 45-seat city council in Bishkek. The council is responsible for electing the city's mayor, and is also seen as a springboard for many politicians looking to build a career at the national level. (RFE/RL)
GEORGIAN COURT RELEASES MILITARY OFFICIALS ON BAIL, EX-INTERIOR MINISTER STILL HELD
9 November
A court in Tbilisi has released two military officials on bail but left a former interior minister in pretrial detention. Georgia's armed forces chief of staff Giorgi Kalandadze and Georgian Army brigade commander Zurab Shamatava were released on bail of 20 thousand laris ($9,400). Georgia's former interior minister, Bacho Akhalaia, was ordered to be kept in pretrial detention for two months. The three were arrested and charged with abuse of office earlier this week. Prosecutors had demanded that all three remain be held in pretrial detention. Earlier on November 9, 29 members of parliament representing President Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement party requested the trio's release on bail. Saakashvili's party became a parliamentary minority after it was defeated by current Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition during elections last month. Meanbwhile, in related news, a NATO official has told RFE/RL that a visit by the alliance's Military Committee to Tbilisi has had to be rescheduled because of the current political situation in Georgia. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on November 9 that "recent events in Georgia make it difficult for both sides to fully benefit from the visit at this time." Georgia's Minister for Integration into European Institutions, Aleksi Petriashvili, told journalists on the same day that the NATO committee’s visit has been postponed due to the arrest of Georgia's armed forces chief of staff. The chief of staff, Giorgi Kalandadze, Georgian Army brigade commander Zurab Shamatava, and former Interior Minister Bacho Akhalaia, were jailed this week and charged with abuse of office. According to Petriashvili, the rescheduling of the committee's visit will not affect Tbilisi-NATO relations. (RFE/RL)
EU OFFICIAL DENIED BAKU PRISON HOSPITAL VISIT DESPITE PRESIDENTIAL PROMISE
9 November
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes of the Netherlands was barred from visiting a penitentiary hospital in Baku, despite President Ilham Aliyev's permission to do so. Kroes told journalists in Baku that she met with Azerbaijan's president on November 6 and he agreed she could visit the hospital to observe the conditions for inmates there. Kroes said that when she arrived at the prison hospital, officials would not allow her into the building. She said that in her country, "if a president says something, it is always done, as in any democratic country." A spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Penitentiary Service, Mehman Sadiqov, told RFE/RL that Kroes’ visit to the penitentiary hospital did not take place because of "protocol issues." (RFE/RL)
UZBEK COURT REVERSES DECISION TO SEIZE RUSSIAN MOBILE OPERATOR'S ASSETS
9 November
The Tashkent City Court in Uzbekistan has reversed a September ruling to seize assets belonging to Russia's largest mobile telecommunications company. According to the November 9 decision, the company, MTS, was ordered to pay a $600 million penalty to compensate for alleged tax evasion and embezzlement at the company's Uzbek subsidiary, Uzdunrobita. The decision comes a week after Russian investigators seized a Moscow apartment worth $10 million belonging to Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan's president. The apartment was seized in connection with a criminal investigation into the confiscation of MTS property and assets in Uzbekistan. In September, the Tashkent Criminal Court sentenced four managers of the MTS subsidiary to three-year suspended sentences and ordered the confiscation of the subsidiary's assets.
PROMINENT KAZAKH JOURNALIST FINED FOR LIBEL, AGAIN
9 October
A court in Kazakhstan's western city of Oral has again fined an opposition journalist for libel. Lukpan Akhmedyarov and his employer, the "Uralskaya nedelya" weekly, were ordered to pay 1.5 million tenges ($7,700) to a local finance police officer for allegedly insulting him in an article. In July, Akhmedyarov was found guilty of insulting a local official and ordered to pay him 5 million tenges ($33,000). The international media group Reporters Without Borders condemned the court's decision then. The group called it a move "to strangle the journalist financially." In April, Akhmedyarov survived a vicious attack in which he was stabbed and shot with an air pistol. Last month, Akhmedyarov received the prestigious Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism at a ceremony in the United States. (RFE/RL)
DOZENS PICKET KYRGYZ PARLIAMENT, DEMAND RELEASE OF OPPOSITION LEADERS
12 November
Dozens of activists, including many elderly men, have picketed outside Kyrgyzstan's parliament in Bishkek to continue pressure since authorities detained three opposition leaders after violence marred a protest. The protesters at the November 12 picket were demanding the immediate release of three opposition members of parliament -- Kamchybek Tashiev, Sadyr Japarov, and Talant Mamytov -- all of whom are leaders of the opposition Ata-Jurt (Homeland) party. They have been charged with provoking public unrest in connection with an October 3 demonstration in the capital to demand the nationalization of the largest gold-mining operation in Kyrgyzstan, the Kumtor mine, which is owned by a Canada-based company. That gathering was attended by about 1,000 demonstrators. In addition to freedom for the detained men, the picketers, who call themselves the National Patriotic Movement, told RFE/RL that they also demand the dismissal of the parliament, the holding of early parliamentary election, the nationalization of all industrial facilities and mines in the country, and the adoption of a new Kyrgyz constitution. The elderly protesters performed an Islamic prayer near the parliament to support the detained men. On October 5, the trio's preliminary arrest was extended to two months. (RFE/RL)
NATO CHIEF EXPRESSES CONCERNS OVER GEORGIA ARRESTS
12 November
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says he is "extremely concerned" about political developments in Georgia since last month's parliamentary elections. He discussed his concerns during a November 12 meeting of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly in Prague. "[There’s] no reason to hide that I am extremely concerned about the development we have seen since [the elections], not least related to recent arrests of political opponents in Georgia," Rasmussen said. "It's for the legal system, the judicial system in Georgia to sort out these cases but of course it's important that such trials are not undermined by political interference and we will of course follow that development very, very closely." On November 9, a Georgian court released armed forces chief of staff Giorgi Kalandadze and Georgian Army brigade commander Zurab Shamatava on bail but left former Interior Minister Bacho Akhalaia in pretrial detention. Akhalaia was ordered to be kept in pretrial detention for two months. The three were arrested and charged with abuse of office last week. All three worked under President Mikheil Saaksashvili. Rasmussen said that "it's important that such trials are not undermined by political interference." Saakashvili also attended the NATO meeting in Prague. In an interview with RFE/RL, he said he agreed with Rasmussen’s comments. "The main challenge for us is to have the process of law, which is to say it's not about the culpability or innocence of certain individuals. It's about the rule of law and the due process of law," Saakashvili said. "From that point of view, of course, we have lots of concerns. And hopefully it can be remedied, and we can find a way to reverse it, but at this stage I think the language used by [Secretary-General Rasmussen] expressing strong concern is pretty valid." Saakashvili's United National Movement lost the October 1 parliamentary elections to new Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition. Ivanishvili, who was confirmed as prime minister atop a new government on October 25, has vowed to take action against former officials suspected of wrongdoing. Rasmussen's remarks came as Ivanishvili was in Brussels on his first official trip abroad since the elections. He was expected to meet with Rasmussen during his three-day trip. On November 12, he met with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman van Rompuy. At a news conference, Barroso reiterated the importance of the European Union's relationship with Georgia. "I see the [Georgian] Prime Minister [Ivanishvili's] choice to visit Brussels in his first official trip abroad as a clear sign of Georgia's continued engagement with the European Union," Barroso said. "Georgia is a key member of our Eastern Partnership [program] and European Union is keen in bringing the country closer to the European Union." Ivanishvili said Georgia's integration with the European Union and NATO were his government's priorities. His trip to Brussels -- less than two weeks after taking office -- is widely seen as a signal to the West that ties with NATO and Europe, rather than Russia, remain Georgia's top priority. The 56-year-old billionaire businessman made most of his fortune in Russia. He has promised to improve relations with Moscow that were damaged in 2008 after a brief war between the two countries. (RFE/RL)