ALMATY, Dec 28 (AFP)
A Kazakh presidential candidate said Monday that Kazakhstan should close the Baikonur
space center by 2002 due to the harmful ecological and health effect of its rocket
launches.
�I am defending the constitutional right of the people of Kazakhstan ... to live in a
healthy
environment,� declared Engels Gabbasov, a parliamentary deputy who will challenge
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and two other candidates in the January 10 poll.
Russia this year agreed to pay 142 million dollars annually to rent the cosmodrome, which
was the Soviet Union�s main rocket launchpad and is located on the Kazakh steppe.
While residents in Almaty, Kazakhstan�s financial capital, are generally opposed to
shutting
down Baikonur, Gabbasov said his ideas had received support from the rural population,
especially in regions affected by the launches.
Political observers and local media believe Gabbasov has little chance of beating the
favored Nazarbayev in the election.
Nurlan ABLYAZOV
Almaty, Dec 27 (AROUND THE GLOBE)
The TIME -is Great, Terrible, Inexhaustible and Perpetual - The time. Sometimes it
slightly
slows down its rate. Thus, every time on the threshold of a New Year we have it a littler
bit
more than usually as if the time invites us: to think, to look ahead, to recall, to
meditate.
Here it is one New Year story. Actually, January the 4, 1973 has just come imperceptibly.
The next day I had an examination to pass - the first examination at an University, it was
the
physics in writing. About six months were left before my eighteen, I felt absolutely lost
in the
Siberian space in general and quite uncertain in the sense of the physics in writing,
geographically I found myself along, in a room for five people in the students�
dormitory at
the Novosibirsk University. It was an evening, I had New Year greetings from my Almaty
class-mates in my hands and tears in the eyes, the eyes of a first-year student on the eve
of
his first examination - the physics in writing. Besides all this - I suffered
home-sickness and
nostalgia for friends....
What held up the moment, what made the Time stop? The greeting letter, tears, the
examination, the New Year? A simple answer - the examination; a complex one - may be
also the examination; but also both tears and the letter and the New Year...
As far back as in childhood I calculated that in 2000 I would be forty five. Now there is
a little
to wait for - a tiny bit more than one year. The last year of the millenium, even though
cognizant people assert that the century and the millenium end on the 31 of December in
2001 and the 21 century commences on the 1 January of 2001. O.K. let us celebrate this
remarkable event twice - in one year sharp and in two years sharp, agreed?
Meanwhile it is 1999, one thousand nine hundred ninety nine. Have you ever tried to dial
this
number on computer? It seems there is an excess of nines. Will it be an extraordinary
year?
While celebrating a New Year, one remembers the Old one. You yourself, your family,
relatives, your work, friends...a country, the world.
The world is difficult to assess. The USA bombed points of Bin Ladena in Afghanistan,
Sudan, the Americans and the British - Iraq of Saddam. The crisis pulled down Indonesia of
Subharto but Indonesia remains. Korea withstood. The Ruble tobogganed, Russia managed
to stand up but devaluated. a hurricane in the Central America. Europe is on the threshold
of
introduction of the Euro.
Monika Lewinski became the most outstanding probationer for the White House. Galina
Starovoytova was assassinated in a house on a quay in Saint Petersburg, Mustafa Odzhalan
had been arrested in Rome, Gelmut Kohl retired on a pension, Grigoriy Yavlinskiy had a
cardiac arrest.
In general, the world experienced an ordinary not simple year. Just one thousand nine
hundred ninety eight years of �nno Domini.
Kazakstan failed its examination. We seems to be great specialists in this. The Tenge and
the government resisted. However, the former had to collapse long time ago and the latter
was prophesied to from the very beginning. Pre-scheduled elections were declared and
Kazakstan failed the examination on politics. There is another examination to pass -
practical
economy in the conditions of crisis prices for your product. Your product is oil and
metals.
Add to them an universal uncertain investment climate. Lack of ideas, a clearly formulated
program in case there is no hope for oil and other raw materials, makes the position of
Kazakstan passing examination quite precarious. For one -two or may be three years, but we
have to outlive them. In case of failure, which means a significant worsening of the
population state - the examination that failed in 1998 might end up with a very serious
crisis.
In my time the most unsuccessful outcome for a student - in the sense of the life scale -
was
military service after sending down. On a large scale - for an ex-student�s whole life -
was a
complete excommunication from the higher education with all consequences. The same is
with the examination on political system of Kazakstan.
Most of all the �elections� in the economy became apparent in the absolute deceleration
of
anti-crisis programs development. Investors were ready to escape from Russia but there was
nowhere to escape from Kazakstan. There is nobody even to talk to. Everybody partakes in
elections and everybody is waiting for elections.
By the way, against a background of absent ideas not only the figure of a President, a
kind
of orchestra�s band-master, becomes important. When a common melody is absent,
soloists, who are able to compose it become important. In this sense a Prime Minister�s
post
gets determinative. In a simple language: The New Year - is an examination. Somebody will
have to sell tickets for aircrafts every day of the next year, somebody will repair cars
and
we will issue our one hundred newspapers on Wednesdays and Fridays. Whilst all of us are
preparing for a crisis. as one famous Kazakstani banker said� expectations of a crisis
are
much worse that is the crisis itself�. Let us hope so.
Gulbanu ABENOVA
ALMATY, December 30
(THE GLOBE)
�The current regime in Kazakhstan distinctly becomes autocratic, that�s why a strong
opposition against it is needed�, said on December 29 Seidakhmet Kuttykadam, one of the
leaders of a new Movement and the chairman of the organization committee for the
Movement Orleu /Progress/.
�Unfortunately, it was not possible till now because many political parties in
Kazakhstan just
copied the West or Russian ideologies�, he said.
In his opinion, now two oligarchic centers emerged in Kazakhstan, namely Nazarbayev and
Kazhegeldin; they seem to be two, but in fact it�s the divided one which came into
existence
during the process of privatization. He thinks they are not the only happy exceptions, a
lot of
Kazakhstani people honestly got their money during liberal economy 1992-1995 years.
Kazakhstani businessmen depressed by heavy taxation are eager to run free-hand serious
business and thus work for the benefit of their country but they don�t want to join
neither
Nazarbayev nor Kazhegeldin, they want to create the third center to meet the goal, said
Kuttykadam