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DUSHANBE (TCA) — Tajikistan has repatriated 84 minors from Iraq, where their Tajik mothers have been imprisoned under charges of belonging to the extremist group Islamic State (IS) or are awaiting trial, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported.
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NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin took part in the meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Yerevan (Armenia) on April 30. The meeting was also attended by the prime ministers of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, Belarus — Syarhey Rumas, Armenia — Nikol Pashinyan, Kyrgyzstan — Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev, and Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (the governing body of the Eurasian Economic Union) Tigran Sargsyan, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — Members of China’s Uyghur Muslim population continue to be subject to “egregious abuses” but the government in Beijing has faced few, if any, consequences, a bipartisan U.S. federal commission says in its 2019 annual report on religious freedom worldwide, RFE/RL reported.
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BEIJING (TCA) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed the plight of Muslims in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in a recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, urging the Chinese leader to respect human rights, RFE/RL reported.
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NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — At the meeting of the Government on April 29, chaired by Prime Minister Askar Mamin, approaches to implementation of the project “Aul – El Besigi” were approved. The project is aimed at improving the quality of life in the countryside and modernizing the social environment of rural areas, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
In the Address “Growing Welfare of Kazakh Citizens: Increasing Income and Quality of Life,” Elbasy (Leader of the Nation) Nursultan Nazarbayev set the task of modernizing the social infrastructure of villages through the project “Aul – El Besigi”.
Deputy Prime Minister Zhenis Kassymbek reported on the work carried out to identify promising villages.
Prime Minister Mamin said that until 2025, “Aul – El Besigi” will cover 80% of all rural residents, or about 2 thousand settlements with a total coverage of 6.1 million people. For the modernization of rural settlements, regional standards providing social and engineering infrastructure have been developed.
To implement the project it is planned to allocate 90 billion tenge, including 30 billion tenge in 2019, from the national budget for 2019–2021.
For effective implementation of the project, the Project Office was created under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister Kassymbek. Similar regional offices will be created in the regions under the leadership of akims (governors).
Within seven years, it is planned to cover the processes of “managed urbanization” and create a more comfortable living environment in the supported villages, whose population will increase by 600 thousand people and reach 6.1 million in 2025.
“At the initial stage in 2019, we will modernize 52 district centers, which will improve the quality of life of almost 700 thousand people or 9% of the rural population. By 2025, it is planned to provide the necessary benefits and services to 80% of all rural residents,” Kassymbek said.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — The stage has been set for the start of remedial work at two uranium legacy sites in Kyrgyzstan, part of a wider plan to deal with the harmful legacy of Soviet-era uranium mining and processing in Central Asia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said on April 29.
Work is now expected to begin this year, initially at the Shekaftar site, following a grant agreement signed between the Kyrgyz authorities and the EBRD. A grant is provided by the Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia (ERA), a fund initiated by the European Commission and managed by the EBRD.
The agreement was signed on behalf of the EBRD by its Director for Nuclear Safety, Balthasar Lindauer, and the Kyrgyz Minister for Emergency Situations, Nurbolot Mirzahmedov. It allows for the start of a tender process for the selection of a contractor for the work at the Min-Kush and Shekaftar sites. These two sites have been identified as top priorities because of the environmental risks they pose.
After meetings in Bishkek with the Kyrgyz authorities on April 29, Mr Lindauer said: “We are grateful to the Kyrgyz government for the strong partnership we have established. Today we have taken important decisions to start work and reduce the risks to the people of the Kyrgyz Republic from these old mining sites.”
The ERA was set up in 2015 to rehabilitate high-priority sites in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Framework Agreements have been signed with all three countries.
Central Asia served as an important source of uranium in the former Soviet Union. Uranium was mined for over 50 years and uranium ore was also imported from other countries for processing. A large amount of radioactively-contaminated material was placed in mining waste dumps and tailing sites. Most of the mines were closed by 1995 but very little remediation was done before or after the closure of the mining and milling operations.
The EBRD is the only international financial institution engaged in nuclear safety and decommissioning programs and has been active in the field since 1993. ERA is the latest fund managed by the EBRD and it is supported by contributions from the European Commission, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway and Lithuania.
