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The Blair Rich Project

16 Nov

The jury is still out over the impact that Tony Blair Associates has had on Kazakhstan over the last two years. The former UK prime minister’s consultancy has been advising Astana on a variety of issues since October 2011 in a project dubbed by some observers as “The Blair Rich Project”.

While many Kazakhstan-watchers have pointed to a worsening of the human rights situation and a widespread crackdown in the country since the December 2011 Zhanaozen riots, when 15 protestors were killed, Tony’s crew has witnessed a somewhat different scene.

Using the rose-tinted spectacles supplied by Astana, Tony Blair Associates (TBA) rejected notions of a crackdown, telling the Guardian: “We simply do not agree that the situation in this regard has deteriorated.”

It seems they hadn’t spotted an opposition leader getting jailed for apparently organising the trouble in Zhanaozen, other dissenting political voices being neutered, the silencing of critical media outlets and a further scaling back of the right to free assembly.

The tw0-year contract has just finished and is supposedly up for renewal, but Lord Venal is sceptical it will be prolonged.

“Astana paid $26 million for the services of TBA and, quite frankly, were expecting a bit more Blair for their bucks,” he told Kazaxia.

Tony has only paid flying visits to Kazakhstan, deputising the work to others in his team as he globetrots around sorting out the planet’s problems.

“For that sort of money, Kazakhstan could have bought a million twitter shares (priced initially at $26 a pop), a bar of Kazakhstan chocolate for every person in the country, or around 20% of the Welsh wizard, Gareth Bale,” Lord Venal added.

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Alga Shaky Kangaroos!

1 Oct

Kazakhstan’s Shakhter Karagandy, better known to some UK supporters as the Shaky Kangaroos, is set to make its home debut in the Europa League this Thursday with the visit of Israel’s Maccabi Haifa to the Astana Arena, where Shakhter are playing its home legs. It is the first time a team from Kazakhstan has reached the group stages of Europe’s second tier contest.

Kazaxia is predicting a close run thing with both clubs losing their openers in Group L, with Shakhter losing 2-1 to Greece’s PAOK and Maccabi going down 1-0 at home to Holland’s AZ Alkmaar.

According to Lord Venal, the result will hinge on whether or not Shakhter will be allowed to sacrifice a sheep before the match. It was prevented from doing this before its second leg tie with Scotland’s Glasgow Celtic and subsequently lost 3-0 and failed to qualify for the Champions League.

The match has sparked a lot of interest in Kazakhstan with some fans even prepared to travel overnight by bus from the business hub of Almaty to the capital Astana.

For 20,000 tenge ($130) the bus will take the fans from Almaty’s Central Stadium to the Astana Arena with guaranteed match tickets, before making the 12-hour or so journey back down south. Kazaxia hopes that the trip will be worth it for these die hard fans.

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Kazakhstan: Reality vs. Image

18 Jul

Quick now, when’s the last time you read or heard anything about Kazakhstan in the Huffington Post?

I thought so. It was the July 1 story about a Russian rocket crashing in Kazakhstan after its launch (“Russian Rocket Crashes in Kazakhstan After Launch”).

No? Then surely it was the June 30 feature on British PM David Cameron’s trip to Atyrau and Astana to drum up some business for the UK and not discuss human rights too much less it offend his hosts (“David Cameron in Kazakhstan for Trade and Human Rights Talks”).

Not that either? Then it must have been the story about Borat (remember him?) from April 23, 2012 (“Borat Still Boosting Kazakhstan Tourism”).

No matter. The point is that Kazakhstan, a country the size of Western Europe with vast reserves of oil that rose from the ashes of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and has been ruled forever by Nursultan Nazarbayev, is rarely featured in the Huffington Post unless it’s a negative story or some free positive PR for the authorities in Astana (“Kazakhstan:Image vs. Reality”).

(with thanks to Al Eisele, Editor-at-Large, The Hill)

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Kazakhstan: In Praise of the First President

1 Dec

Lord Venal has seen fit to put pen to paper as Kazakhstan prepares to celebrate the Day of the First President on 1 December, the country’s newest public holiday.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev bestrides Kazakhstan like a colossus – his image beams down from billboards on nearly every street corner. The Park of the First President is a fixture of all major towns and cities. Every evening he tops the TV news agenda meeting with dignitaries, opening factories and winning EXPO 2017 bids.

The First President awaits visitors

The First President awaits visitors

Wildly loved by his adoring public – he won 96.5 % of the vote in the last election, The Leader of the Nation, as he is also known, has worked ceaselessly over the last twenty-two years as he has steered the good ship Kazakhstan through turbulent waters to leave the country becalmed in a sea of economic prosperity and political stagnation.

He is one of the world’s longest serving presidents – only a few presidents have kept the throne warmer for longer than the glorious leader – Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson and arch-rival Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan spring to mind.

Toys_4_NAN

The Nazarbayev University in his fairytale capital city, Astana, proudly carries his name as do a network of Nazarbayev Intellectual schools, which have mushroomed across Kazakhstan in recent years. The day cannot be far off when Nazarbayev kindergartens, fertility clinics and dating agencies will grace the provincial capitals.

I, along with my former cell mate, Jonathan Aitken, the famed hagiographer, who is in Astana to sing the praises of the First President yet again, would like to wish the Leader many happy returns on this the anniversary of the distant day back in 1991 when he won his first election along with the hearts of the Kazakh nation. Long may he reign – Kazakhstan’s very own Superkhan!

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Kazakhstan’s Rio Hopes Crash in Vienna

17 Oct

Kazakhstan’s extremely faint hopes of making it through the group stages to the Rio 2014 World Cup were finally extinguished last night as it crashed to a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Austria.

Having drawn 0-0 with the Austrians last Friday in Astana to get its first point of the campaign on the board, Kazakhstan crumbled in the return fixture. In its opening four games Kazakhstan has conceded eight goals while scoring only one.

Only the Faroe Islands has a worse record with no points on the board, nine goals conceded but two scored.  Next up for the Kazakhs will be Germany in Astana in March, but realistically its hopes for more points will come in its clashes with the part-timers of the Faroe Islands in the battle for group C’s wooden spoon.

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Kazakhstan: Beware of Flying the Flag

12 Oct

Kazakhstan will be hoping this evening to get their attempt to qualify for the Rio 2012 World Cup back on track as they entertain Austria in the Astana Arena. Having lost the opening two matches, Kazakhstan will be desperate to get some points on the board. Last October, when the Austrians were last in town, the Kazakhs pulled off a surprise 0-0 draw.

One thing Austrian supporters should be careful of is displaying their national flag as it is an offence in Kazakhstan to display the flags of other nations in public.

Kazakh fans should also be wary after a 23-year-old Atyrau resident was fined in excess of $2,000 for displaying the Kazakh flag on the bonnet of his car, as reported on Bnews.kz.

Under Kazakh law, the flag can only be placed in official places. The display on the car’s bonnet was felt to diminish the importance of the flag.

I just hope the authorities don’t discover the Kazakh flag bathtowel I was given as a birthday present a few years back. I’m sure my bathroom cannot be considered by any stretch of the imagination to be an official place!

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Kazakhstan: Vino Bows Out

11 Oct

Kazakhstan’s star cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov has finally hung up his trouser clips as he brought his chequered pro-cycling career to a close with a win in the jubilee criterium race on the streets of his adopted home city of Monaco.

Vinokourov – known to his fans simply as Vino, had many highs and lows in his 14-year career as a pro-cyclist. He ended on a high note by taking gold in the Men’s Cycling Road Race in this year’s London Olympics, which he added to his silver medal from Sydney in 2004.

The lows included a scandal-hit Tour de France in 2007 when he was kicked out for failing a blood-doping test. This earned him a two-year ban from the sport. In 2011 he was embroiled in a scandal that saw him accused of bribing a fellow rider to let him win a race.

It is likely that Vino will now take up a position on the management side of the Astana pro-cycling team that was set up around him in 2006 by a consortium of Kazakh companies. Another option is politics in his native Kazakhstan – he was listed as a candidate for Nur Otan in January’s parliamentary vote.

However, the smart money’s on the high-life in Monaco and the buzz of the pro-cycling circuit rather than the somewhat less attractive lure of entering Astana’s turgid political scene.  If he does opt for Kazakhstan, then the cheating and corruption allegations will stand him in good stead for a life in politics.

His retirement comes at a time when  former Astana team mate, Lance Armstrong,  finally faces the music with the sheer weight of evidence provided by the United States anti-Doping Agency pointing to long-term,  systematic doping in Armstrong’s past before he joined Astana.

 

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Kazakhstan: Dangerous Bohemian Sentenced to 7.5 Years

8 Oct

The people of Kazakhstan can rest easy tonight as the leader of the gang thought to be behind the Zhanaozen violence last December, Vladimir Kozlov, was sentenced to seven and a half years for provoking the unrest and planning to overthrow the state.

During the trial in Aktau, Western Kazakhstan,  Kozlov, the leader of the unregistered Alga! party, was tagged by an ‘expert’ analyst as having a ‘Bohemian personality’.  This was most likely why he decided to form a gang with himself and tried to overthrow the state.

Astana will surely be in a ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as its court found Kozlov guilty of the charges laid against him in Kazakhstan’s first show trial of the post-Soviet era.

The whereabouts of Kozlov’s supposed ‘puppet master’ – Mukhtar Ablyazov, remain unknown since he fled Britain in March 2012 after being sent down himself.

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Kazakhstan: State Media Muzzled

17 Sep

News reaches Kazaxia that the authorities in Kazakhstan have ordered state-owned media outlets to stick to the accepted party line about events and to not ask awkward questions.

Comments from Darkhan Mynbay, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Culture and Information, carried on Tengri News, said that in the event of emergency situations, Astana will feed information to a pool of officially-sanctioned journos who will then relay the information verbatim.

Kazaxia has been wondering about the inspiration behind this latest move to keep the public uninformed. Could it be linked to the recent visit of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, a known hater of the free press? In his country media outlets operate under conditions of self-censorship, a way of keeping them in line and ensuring that the message is strictly controlled by Tashkent.

Self-censorship? Now that’s a good idea!

Another possibility are the links that Astana has formed with Tony Blair Associates. Could Tony’s master of the black arts of spin and the sound bite, Alastair Campbell, have been sharing tips with Mr Mynbay from his time dealing with the UK media’s awkward questions?

Blair’s Rottweiler gives tips on spin

A third possibility is the intervention of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak who was also in Astana recently. Maybe he brought a message from his counterpart north of the border as the North Koreans are the masters of media control.

No questions, please – just write what I say!

Whatever the reasoning behind these moves, it’s not going to help the cherished dream of encouraging critical thinking within the populace of Kazakhstan any time soon.

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Kazakhstan: The Road to Rio

7 Sep

Astana is facing an invasion from the Green Army as Kazakhstan begins its attempt to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Rio this evening with the visit of Ireland to the Astana Arena.  With Ireland fresh from a disappointing performance in Euro 2012, Kazakhstan, on home turf, will be looking to start with a positive result.

The chances of Kazakhstan getting as far as Rio are extremely slim – it’s also up against Germany, Sweden, Austria and the Faroe Islands in group C. Its best hope is to finish above the Faroe Islands and maybe snatch a surprise or two against Ireland or Austria.

Bookies are offering 4/1 on a Kazakhstan victory or 5/2 on the draw for tonight’s match if you think tonight could be the night for a surprise.

Reuters has this comprehensive piece on football development in Kazakhstan if you want to find out more about what’s going on in the soccer world in Kazakhstan.

 

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