In this issue:
First Kazakh Satellite to Be in Space by End of 2005
Kazakhstan Sets Sail for Caspian
Anniversary of First Nuclear Test Brings More Hope for Victims
Population Grows, Higher Birth Rates, 106 Boys per 100 Girls
Sending a kid to school:
Where do I enroll my child? --- Balandy okuga bereuushin kai zherde terkeleum kerek?
Will the language be Kazakh, Russian or English? --- Oku kai tilde zhirguzeledi: qazak, orys nemese aglshyn?
Where can I buy school books? --- Okulyktardy kai zherde aluga bolady?
What grade will he be in? --- Kai synyk ta okuityn bolady?
First Kazakh Satellite to Be In Space by End of 2005
KazSat, the first Kazakh communications satellite, will be delivered to the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan at the end of November, with a scheduled launch date of December 25, 2005, the program’s chief engineer said August 31.
Eduard Radchenko, the Chief Engineer of the Kazakh-Russian KazSat program, said, “We need to launch the satellite by December 25. Thirty-five to forty days are needed to install the system in Baikonur.”
The project is being put together in a very short timeframe. “The Khrunichev center (Russia) built the satellite under a contract with Kazakhstan in only two years,” Radchenko explained.
The contract outlined the construction of an Earth-based monitoring system so Kazakhstan could receive and process signals from its satellite.
“By sending the first national satellite into orbit Kazakhstan will be able to avoid using expensive U.S. and European telecommunications satellites, while fully meeting the country’s television broadcasting and satellite communications needs,” Radchenko said.
The KazSat satellite will also provide communications services for Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and parts of Russia.
Kazakhstan Sets Sail for Caspian
The tanker Kazakhstan, another large tanker specifically built for transporting crude oil across the Caspian Sea, was launched at the Vyborg wharf in Russia on August 30, bringing Kazakhstan, the country, a step closer to realizing its ambitions of becoming one of the world’s largest oil exporters.
Mobikex Energy Ltd. of Kazakhstan contracted the tanker which is 149 meters long with a deadweight of 12,000 tons and can run at a speed of ten knots. An official delegation from Kazakhstan led by the Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications, Talgat Abylgazin, attended the commissioning of the ship in Russia.
To get from Vyborg on the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea to the landlocked Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan will need to travel from the Neva River via the Baltic channel to the Volga River and then into the Caspian.
Earlier this year, the first tanker in this series, Astana, was welcomed in Aktau, Kazakhstan’s main oil port on the Caspian. The third one, Abai, is due to be completed later this year. These tankers, designed by Vympel of Novgorod, Russia, are meant to transport oil from producers in Kazakhstan to Baku, on the other side of the Caspian Sea, where it is to be uploaded into the recently commissioned Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Kazakhstan is expected to be producing 100 million tons of oil a year by 2010 (2 million barrels per day), and is seeking to ensure multiple export routes for its production.
Anniversary of First Nuclear Test Brings More Hope for Victims
As people in the Semipalatinsk region were getting ready to mark the grim anniversary of the first Soviet nuclear explosion on the site on August 29, 1949, Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov toured the region offering an “unprecedented” program of developmental assistance.
The first Soviet nuclear test took place at the Semipalatinsk site on August 29, 1949. Following that, the Soviet Union detonated 455 more bombs at the site with the total power output equivalent of 20,000 Hiroshima size bombs, bringing illnesses to hundreds of thousands of people and devastation to the region. The area has some of the highest cancer rates in Kazakhstan and has been struggling economically.
The new three year 26 billion tenge program (US$1=135 tenge) will include assistance in developing local industries, transportation, housing and utilities, electricity and water supplies, and agriculture, as well as expanded healthcare, education, culture and sport.
Projects to be developed with the Government’s support include a joint venture of the Semipalatinsk Machinery Building Plant and the Russian automobile giant KamAZ to produce spare automobile parts locally, as well as construction materials, as well as heating for the city of Semipalatinsk in a region where temperatures drop below minus 40 Celsius (minus 38 Fahrenheit) in the winter.
The program for the years 2006 through 2008 is “unprecedented” in terms of money allocated and scope of work to be carried out, the Prime Minister said in Semipalatinsk, where he pledged the Government’s continued attention to the region.
Population Grows, Higher Birth Rates, 106 Boys per 100 Girls
Kazakhstan’s population grew by 72,000 people in the first half of 2005, or 0.5 percent, to reach 15,146,800, the country’s Agency on Statistics has announced.
The increase was largely due to a higher birth rate of 18.4 children per 1000 women. Last year, it stood at 17.6 per 1000. Statistics also showed there were 71,386 boys and 67,498 girls born in the period, which makes the proportion of 106 boys per 100 girls.
Birth rates in the cities have grown 7.2 percent, while in the countryside the increase was only 0.5 percent. Every tenth child was born in ethnically mixed marriages.
The highest birth rates remain in regions where they are traditionally high: South Kazakhstan (26.76), Atyrau (22.8), Zhambyl (21.18) and in the city of Almaty (21.18), Kazakhstan’s largest with the population of 1.5 million.
Things to Watch:
- Gali Myrzashev, an artist from Kazakhstan, will present his art at a personal exhibit opening in New York City on September 1. He was invited by New York Realism art studio to participate in a seminar, Contemporary Realism, and will lecture on Contemporary Art in Kazakhstan. His personal exhibit, My home region, will be open until September 8, and following that will be part of a joint exhibit from September 23 through October 8.
- The Government of Kazakhstan has moved into a new building on the left bank of the Ishim River in Astana, joining the already moved Presidential Administration, the Foreign Ministry, other ministries as well as the Parliament. The move took place at the end of August.
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News Bulletin of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the USA and Canada
(Compiled from own sources and agency reports)
Contact person: Roman Vassilenko
1401 16th Street NW, Washington DC 20036
Tel.: 202 232 5488, ext. 104, Fax: 202 232 5845
