KZBlog

Tag archive for ‘social problems’

• After the Flood

  Global Voices Online reports on whether victims of the burst dams in Almaty oblast are getting the aid they need or not, and public giving comes to Kazakhstan hopefully to stay.

  4/13/10 • (Comments Off on After the Flood)

• Video From Bishkek

  Amazing video. Go to the Youtube site to check out others by the same author. Although not showing any bloodshed, it’s quite shocking to see how well armed some of the protesters are. Where do people get automatic rifles? You can also see, in this encounter, on the main street of Bishkek a couple of […]

  4/07/10 • (1)

• Back in Brooklyn

  Just wanted to note that one of my favorite bloggers in the Central Asian blogosphere, Miss Talibonita, has some new posts up. She tends to find a lot of great pop culture stuff from the region. But her most recent post is on how Uzbeks are such good cotton pickers. Racism is unfortunately endemic to […]

  4/04/10 • (Comments Off on Back in Brooklyn)

• Death of a Soldier

  A tragic story I came across on the death of a soldier from Aktobe. Apparently on March 4, Sergeant Marat Serkebayev, commander of novice platoon 97617, stationed in Almaty oblast, hit Private Azamat Orazbayev, killing him on the spot from failure of the heart and lungs.

  According to Megapolis (which has the most detailed account of the incident), the commanding Lieutenant assembled the battalion for the usual end of the day debriefing when he was summoned by his commanding officer.

  3/31/10 • (3)

• Who Needs Kazakh?

  The Internet news site Oasis has an interesting opinion piece up called
  Linguistic Illusion. The author, who would appear not to be Kazakh, claims that 1) she speaks Kazakh well and 2) she has never had any need for the language at all. So why is the government pushing people so hard to learn the official language of Kazakhstan?

  3/11/10 • (12)

• 

  Disabled People Suffer

  There was a sad article the other day in Eurasianet about problems faced by disabled in Kyrgyzstan. I post it here because unfortunately many of the same problems exist in Kazakhstan. After doing a bit of research on the subject, I see there’s still a lot of work to be done to integrate disabled people […]

  11/24/09 • (3)

• Police Crackdown on Protests; Court Shows Restraint

  Housing problems in Almaty are nothing new. Real estate prices are incredibly high and cheaper housing is destroyed to make room for new and inevitably high-priced development complexes. A number of regions on the outskirts are home to squatters who are forcibly ejected and denied compensation, or given inadequate compensation, when the land is marked […]

  12/22/08 • (Comments Off on Police Crackdown on Protests; Court Shows Restraint)

• Child Labor is Free Labor

  Following up on Patrick Frost’s article on Child Labor in Central Asia at Central Asia, I have a couple of anecdotes that I have been collecting on child labor in Kazakhstan. One tradition that I gather is a carry-over from Soviet times is the Subbotnik where people volunteer their time on Saturdays to do community […]

  8/08/08 • (Comments Off on Child Labor is Free Labor)

• Foreign Firms Hate Kazakhs

  According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, there are up to 245 cases of foreign firms discriminating against Kazakhstan citizens. “Discrimination against Kazakh citizens can be observed both at the stage of signing individual labour contracts and during the entire employment process – while exercising the right to safe working conditions, the right to conclude a […]

  7/31/08 • (Comments Off on Foreign Firms Hate Kazakhs)

• More Turkish-Kazakh Violence

  According to Turkish news sources, a group of 30 masked men in Almaty attacked 40 Turkish workers Thursday night. The workers were employees of the Turkish company B.N.N. Pegasus (which I assume is a construction company since it has a “camp”, but honestly I can’t find anything about this company written in English) and staying […]

  1/26/08 • (1)

«Older Entries