In this issue:
First Sergeant Major of Kazakh Armed Forces Takes Office, Heralds New Era of Professional Military
Kazakh Police, Border Guards Crack Down on Drug Trafficking
Kazakhstan’s Population Keeps Growing
Kazakhstan Will Switch to International Accounting Standards Next Year
Atlantis in Kazakhstan? Not Exactly, But Close
Aral Sea --- Aral Tenizi
Caspian Sea ---Kaspii Tenizi
First Sergeant Major of Kazakh Armed Forces Takes Office,
Heralds New Era of Professional Military
Serik Abdulin, the first ever Sergeant Major
of the Kazakh Armed Forces took office on
November 22 in a major ceremony in Astana.
It heralded a new era of continued reforms
designed to create a completely professional
volunteer military within the next several
years.
The naming of Abdulin, who won a competition
with 10 other candidates for the job, capped
years of multi-pronged efforts by the Kazakh
military to introduce master sergeants in the
entire vertical structure of the military and
make them into what they essentially are in
the U.S. military: a strong support for their
commanders and the pinnacle of
professionalism and integrity. In the past, in the Soviet tradition, sergeants were in existence in the armed forces of Kazakhstan, but only at the level of platoon sergeant.
Introducing Sergeant Major Abdulin, Defense Minister Army General Mukhtar Altynbayev said: “I have asked commanders and deputy commanders to build new relations [with sergeants] because they are their primary assistants. They need to respect and trust them and help them, especially in the initial stages.”
The new Sergeant Major of the Armed Forces will have oversight of 9,000 sergeants in all units, ranging from the smallest unit on to divisions and armies.
Abdulin, 35, had combat experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and has a bachelor’s degree. In fact sergeants of the new generation are all getting special training in the Cadet Corps, in existence since 1996 and based in Schuchinsk.
Earlier this year, the Defense Minister said 38.5 percent of all enlisted personnel and NCOs in the armed services are professionals doing voluntary service. By the end of this year, that figure is expected to reach 65 percent and by the end of next year the military should be 85 percent volunteer professionals.
Kazakh Police, Border Guards Crack Down on Drug Trafficking
Police, border guards and other security agencies from Kazakhstan and five other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have been involved over the past week in Operation Kanal-2004 (Channel-2004) , designed to fight drug trafficking, originating largely from Afghanistan and increasingly turning into one of Central Asia’s most serious problem.
The second stage of the CIS operation ended Sunday with 621 kilos of drugs seized, including 100 kilos of heroin and 232 kilos of raw opium. The one-week exercise involved police from six CIS countries, including Kazakhstan.
On November 23 Kazakh border guards in the northern Pavlodar region seized two kilos of heroin in a car bound for Russia.
The Minister of Interior of Kazakhstan announced recently that the Kazakh police have “registered 7,829 drug-related crimes” this year, of which 3,574 involved drug sales. Some 20 tons of drugs have been seized, including 95 kilos of heroin.
Officials in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in the region believe the problems lie in the booming opium and heroin production in neighboring Afghanistan in recent years recorded by almost every international organization.
Kassymzhomart Tokaev, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, on a summer visit to Washington, DC, said the failure of international forces to curb Afghanistan’s soaring poppy production threatens to destabilize the entire Central Asian region and could bankroll a new generation of terrorists. He urged closer international cooperation in fighting drug production and trafficking.
The U.S. is assisting Kazakhstan’s anti-drug efforts with money, training, and equipment.
Kazakhstan’s Population Keeps Growing
The Agency on Statistics of Kazakhstan announced the population of the country grew 0.6 percent in the first nine months of 2004 to reach 15,046,300.
The growth was conditioned mostly by the natural growth, 97.6 percent of the total growth, while inward migration contributed only 2.4 percent.
The population grew in nine out of 14 regions of the country and the current and former capital cities of Astana and Almaty. At the same time, the number of people living in Eastern and Northern Kazakhstan decreased somewhat, half of which is accounted for by outward migration of ethnic Russians and other Slavic peoples.
Nine ethnic groups continue to be dominant and constitute 96.2 percent of Kazakhstan’s population. These are Kazakhs, Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Germans, Tartars, Uighurs, Koreans and Belorussians. Overall, there are almost 130 ethnic groups in Kazakhstan.
More than half, 56.9 percent of the country’s population, live in the cities and towns, with the reminder in the countryside.
Since independence in 1991, the population of Kazakhstan has declined from more than 17 million to slightly less than 15 million, mostly because of emigration of ethnic Russians, Germans, and Ukrainians. Since about 2002, when the turn of economic fortunes of Kazakhstan with its high annual growth of 10 percent or more became evident, the outward migration has slowed, and the natural growth resumed as people became more confident in their futures.
Kazakhstan Will Switch to International
Accounting Standards Next Year
Zhamilya Aitzhanova, Deputy Director of the Department of Accounting and Audit Methodology of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Finance, said Kazakhstan will switch to International Accounting Standards (IAS) starting New Year’s Day in 2005. She made the announcement at an international conference on issues related to the switching in Almaty on November 22.
According to the law on bookkeeping, the Kazakhstan Government made a list of companies which were supposed to switch to IAS starting January 1, 2003, joint stock companies, which are to switch to IAS starting January 1, 2005, and other institutions, which are obligated to use IAS starting January 1, 2006.
Participants at the meeting discussed the reporting language and analyzed major problems of companies related to introducing new accounting standards. They also addressed proposals of bookkeepers and auditors aimed at enhancing the qualification for experts dealing with accounting and the introduction of new accounting standards.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Kazakhstan’s Chamber of Professional Bookkeepers and Auditors, the BIKO publishing house and the Epicor Scala company organized the conference.
Atlantis in Kazakhstan? Not Exactly, But Close
Kazakh archaeologists found ancient cities buried under layers of sand and salt at the bottom of the drying Aral Sea. They are calling it the “Kazakh Atlantis” and expressing hopes the discovery will help shed new light on ancient and Middle Age history of the Kazakh people.
The scientists believe the cities, lying in the north-eastern part of the Aral region, date back to the epoch of the Golden Horde and the XIII and XIV centuries.
The newly discovered cities were complete with mills, a soap making factory and a mausoleum. Researches found remains of people and animals scattered around the terrain which, in their mind, suggests that they all had died simultaneously and instantaneously. They believe a catastrophe, such as a major earthquake, might have caused this ancient tragedy. Given several dams found nearby, experts also believe the event could have been a major flood.
Among the most peculiar finds is the mausoleum,
which the scientists named Kerderi, after the
ancient name of the Aral Sea and which is a
matching prototype of the Khodja Akhmed
Yassaui mausoleum in Turkestan, a city in
the south of Kazakhstan with 1,500 years of
recorded history. The Yassaui mausoleum itself
dates back to the XIV century.
The discovery was made possible by the drying
up of the landlocked Aral Sea, which is a major
environmental catastrophe for the region and
beyond. However, in this case the catastrophe
opened the door to the past. The sea, whose
name “aral” means “island” in Kazakh and has
been known as that was centuries, also served
as a preserving agent for the remains of the cities
and their inhabitants.
Things to Watch:
- Defense ministers of the member states of the Organization of the Collective Security Treaty will meet in Moscow on November 25 to discuss the upcoming second stage of Operation Kanal-2004 designed to create a “drug cordon” around Afghanistan.
- Foreign Minister Kassymzhomart Tokaev will visit Sofia, Bulgaria, to attend the ministerial meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on December 6 and 7. Minister Tokaev is to speak on the issue of the OSCE reform.
- Kazpost, the national postal service will introduce new postal codes all across the country as of December 1, 2004. Since 1991, Kazpost has been using the postal codes left by the USSR.
________________________________________________________________________________
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
