Gulbanu ABENOVA
ALMATY, January 18
(The GLOBE)
“ If we talk about market, I stand for demonopolization, demonopolization and once more
demonopolization” announced the
president of KEGOK private JCS on January 18 in Almaty.
Aset Nauryzbayev considers that sense of demonopolization is in its transparence, “if we
lump everything together, the next logic
step is fixed prices, afterwards – formation of GosPlan and restoration of the soviet
power”, he noted.
Touching upon creation of a new consortium, which would include TELECOM, rail way, KEGOK
businesses, he remarked that the
demonopolization would not lead to good results. In his opinion the measures that have
been presently taken in electroenergetics:
division into independent power sources and power grids disintegration by levels led to
the much more transparent tariffs.
He said, it was difficult to regulate tariffs with Kazakhtelecom, when expenses included
both brigades working by the call at
people’s homes and city and arterial channels electricians, at the same time the
antimonopoly committee can easily control KEGOK.
According to him, the Americans follow Kazakstani electrical model and single the
transport line out of regional systems. The line
will deal with the same that KIGOK presently deals with.
The KIGOK president devoted the press conference at the national press-club to the results
of the company’s activity for 1998. He
said that during the year a whole range of large projects was realized. These are
consolidation of South and North Kazakstani energy
systems with Middle Asia, construction of the second line capacity Ekibastuz Hydroelectric
Power Plant with the extent of 34 km.
Total expenses for the last year related to capital investments comprised T1030 mln,
general savings were T160 mln. 36 tenders
were invited and held.
Aset Nauryzbayev informed that from 8 bln of the company’s revenue 2 mln Tenge were paid
taxes for the last year.
BEIJING, Jan 18 (AFP)
Hundreds of laid-off workers in the central Chinese province of Hunan blocked a national
highway Monday to protest at unpaid
wages, officials said.
The protest came as Ministry of Labour officials warned that 16 million Chinese would be
unable to unable to find work this year
because the labour market was flooded with laid-off workers, fresh graduates and
demobilised soldiers.
It also followed hot on the heels of a rural protest in the same province which saw 5,000
villagers pitted against 1,000 police and
soldiers in a protest over taxes.
«Several hundred people from the Changde textiles factory blocked a bridge over Highway
207 in protest at not receiving their
wages,» a Changde municipal official surnamed Zhang said by telephone.
«But the protest only lasted over an hour and now traffic is resuming on the highway,»
he added.
The factory had earlier agreed to hand over three months of back wages on Monday morning.
When the funds were not available,
the laid-off workers blocked a bridge on the highway in protest.
According to the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic
Movement in China, the protest led to a
queue of 1,000 vehicles stretching three kilometres (two miles).
The centre said several detachments of police had been sent to control the 500 protestors.
But a spokesman for the city’s public security
by Ahmad Pathoni
JAKARTA, Jan 18 (AFP)
Violence rocked Indonesia’s province of Aceh as panicky police opened fire on a crowd,
mobs torched the homes of suspected
military collaborators and another civilian died following torture by soldiers, residents
and police said Monday.
Police opened fire on a crowd outside a police station at Blangjeruen in North Aceh
district early Sunday and injured at least four
people, a local commander said.
Two people were injured by gunshots and two others were slightly hurt while trying to run
away after the shooting, North Aceh
district deputy police chief Major Amrin Remico told AFP.
But Yacob Hamzah, from the Iskandar Muda Legal Aid Foundation in Lhokseumawe, the capital
of North Aceh district, said one
person had died and another was injured.
«Our (police) members were haunted by fear and trauma. But I must admit they have acted
too hastily and we have handed over the
case to the military police,» Remico said.
He said two police sergeants who allegedly fired the shots were being detained for
questioning by military police in Lhokseumawe.
The crowd, which Remico put at hundreds and Hamzah at a mere 10, had come to the police
station allegedly to report a traffic
accident, Remico said.
But police, traumatized by past attacks against security personnel in the area since
December, opened fire.
North Aceh, scene of a decades-long separatist revolt, has witnessed a series of killings
and abductions of soldiers. Troops have
tortured and killed civilians in operations to capture a rebel leader and free the
abducted soldiers, or simply in angry fits of
vengeance.
Seven soldiers were killed and two abducted in December and the badly maimed body of
another soldier was found on Sunday.
The killings prompted renewed military operations by troops from outside the province. A
total of 22 civilians have been killed
during the operation so far, including five tortured to death by soldiers while in
detention.
The latest torture victim died in hospital Sunday after being treated for head injuries
for eight days in the intensive care unit.
Four people died and 20 were rushed to hospital after 50 soldiers on January 9 attacked a
building where some 40 civilians were
detained following the hunt for a separatist leader and the abducted soldiers.
One of four people in critical condition died Sunday, according to an employee of the
state hospital in Lhokseumawe,
The employee, who identified himself only as Zakaria, said most of those injured,
including the four seriously hurt, had serious head
wounds.
The violence by the soldiers has sparked outrage that prompted apol