October 5, 2007
Politics:
President of Uzbekistan leaves for Dushanbe for CIS summit
Central Election Commission creates electoral districts for presidential elections
Elucidation of legal system reforms by media discussed
Economics:
AutoMotorShow Uzbekistan 2007 to open in Tashkent next week
Uzbek-Russian Meeting On Agricultural Machinery Held In Tashkent
Latvian business delegation to visit Uzbekistan
Society:
International conference in Tashkent discusses globalization process
Japanese students visit UNDP-backed Legal Clinic
‘Modern Uzbek Video Art’ Presented In Biennale In Tashkent
Theater Show Promotes Dialogue of Cultures
POLITICS
PRESIDENT OF UZBEKISTAN LEAVES FOR DUSHANBE FOR CIS SUMMIT
President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov left for Dushanbe, Tajikistan on October 5 to participate in the regular session of the Council of heads of states of the Commonwealth of Independent States, UzA reported.
At the Dushanbe summit, the CIS leaders are expected to consider the draft Concept of CIS’s further development and the related draft Plan of main events.
The two documents, prepared by the interstate working group, define directions of activity and evolution of the Commonwealth in the nearest future.
The presidents will also discuss problems of migration and issues of single policy in this direction.
CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSION CREATES ELECTORAL DISTRICTS FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Central Election Commission of Uzbekistan held a session on October 5 to consider formation of electoral districts for presidential elections. The session was held by Election Commission chairman Mirzo-Ulugbek Abdusalomov, UzA reported.
In accordance with articles 9 and 14 of the Law on Election of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the commission adopted a resolution on creation of electoral districts in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, regions of the country and the city of Tashkent.
The Central Election Commission also considered other issues related to preparation and conduction of the elections of the President of Uzbekistan.
ELUCIDATION OF LEGAL SYSTEM REFORMS BY MEDIA DISCUSSED
On October 5 Dedeman Silk Road Hotel hosted an international conference on "improving the elucidation of the judicial-legal reforms through mass media".
The event was organized by the Committee for Information and Communication Technologies of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan in cooperation with the German Society for Technical Cooperation and the "Assisting the implementation of the Agreement on Cooperation and Partnership between the EU and the Republic of Uzbekistan" Project within the frame of the EuropAid Programme.
Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan Hurshid Dustmuhamedov opened the conference. The reports delivered particularly stressed that with the adoption of the Presidential decrees "On abolition of the death penalty in the Republic of Uzbekistan" and "On the transfer of the right to issue arrest sanctions to courts", and the Laws "On introduction of amendments and additions to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan due to the abolition of the death penalty" and "On introduction of amendments and addenda to certain legislative acts of the Republic of Uzbekistan due to the transfer of the right to issue arrest sanctions to courts", the country made another step on the way of sequential and consistent reforms in the judicial-legal system.
The principally important decisions of Uzbekistan, based on commonly-accepted democratic values have evoked positive responses in many countries, including those, which have also abolished the death penalty and transferred the right to issue arrest sanctions to courts.
In his report, the member of the Committee for Information and Communication Technologies of the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis Olim Usarov noted that on average there are about 158 imprisoned per every 100,000 people of the population. In other countries, these indicators are substantially higher: in the US – 715, in Russia – 584, in Ukraine – 416, in Kazakhstan – 386, in Kyrgyzstan – 390, and in Estonia – 339. The efforts to reform the judicial-legal system have been pursued constantly since Uzbekistan's independence. The implementation of some specific tasks within the frame of the political-legal doctrine of Uzbekistan has made it possible for the country to approach a new frontier. Undoubtedly, targeted and systematic explanation of the essence of this reform, its purpose, its compliance with international standards, and the end results of this large-scale work for the good of each individual and maintenance of the law supremacy principle among all groups of population is extremely important.
Attributing high importance to the need to improve the forms and methods of active public awareness raising campaigns on the course of legal reforms in Uzbekistan, and noting the need for media's participation in this process, and improvement of the efficiency of its activity through the use of new efficient approaches, conference participants discussed a wide range of the most important issues. They analysed the currently used practices of the media's activity in this sphere, the issues of transparency and information accuracy, the topics concerning different aspects of the development of new methods of close interaction between courts and press and electronic media, and the intensification of the systematic cooperation between them.
If we turn to statistics, we can note that in the first half of 2007 the civil courts heard over 283,000 cases, where 98% of the cases were solved in favour of the claimants. The quality of hearings has improved substantially. In the first half of 2006, 0.7% of the judicial resolutions were rejected. To compare, now the indicator is 0.5%.
In the first half of 2006, the Ministry of Justice checked the content of 82 draft laws, and about 360 other regulatory acts. The Ministry of Justice itself developed 55 drafts of regulatory documents, and registered 186 acts of legislation.
Conference participants also heard the reports of the national, German and Russian experts. Among the speakers at the meeting were the members of the Legislative Chamber, the representatives of the Supreme Court, Higher Economic Court, media, who reflected on the course of the reforms being implemented, and made specific suggestions on increasing the efficiency and transparency of the legal reforms being implemented in the country.
ECONOMICS
AUTOMOTORSHOW UZBEKISTAN 2007 TO OPEN IN TASHKENT NEXT WEEK
The 4th Uzbek International Automobile Exhibition – AutoMotorShow Uzbekistan 2007 – will take place on October 9-12 at UzExpoCentre in Tashkent. A press conference dedicated to this event was held at Radisson SAS Tashkent hotel on October 5, Uzreport.com Business Information portal reported.
The exhibition is officially supported by the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, Investments and Trade of Uzbekistan, Toshshahartransxizmat (Tashkent city transport service) association, National Association of Automobile Components (Russia), Tashkent City Administration, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan. The project is organized by ITE Uzbekistan international exhibition company and its partner I.T.E. Exhibitions & Conference Ltd. (Great Britain).
Speaking on behalf of organizers, ITE Uzbekistan Director General I.Yakubov welcomed and congratulated all participants and guests with opening of the automobile exposition that has become traditional, attracting the growing interest of the Uzbek population.
The first AutoMotorShow exhibition was held in November 2004 with participation of 25 companies from 7 countries. That was a break into the Uzbek car market for some foreign companies.
Today the AutoMotorShow Uzbekistan is one of the most perspective exhibition projects gathering advanced Uzbek companies and representatives of foreign car producers. This year nearly 40 enterprises from 11 countries have applied to participate in the show. Among them are leading manufacturers from Germany, Iran, Korea, China, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
The exhibition will allow not only to admire the novelties, but also to get necessary information on the situation in the world motor-car industry from participants and dealers, known brands. Presentations of UzAvtoSanoat (Uzbekistan), AvtoVAZ (Russia), UAZ (Russia), KIA Motors (Korea), Chevrolet-Niva (Russia), Mitsubishi (Japan), Saipa Corporation (Iran) are reported to take place within the framework of the exhibition.
Organizers believe that the motor show will be a cogent evidence of vast potential of the international cooperation in the field of motor-car construction. It will be a good platform for meetings of leaders of the Uzbek market and specialists from other countries, while participation in the event will promote the increase of company's image in the Uzbek car market, according to organizers.
UZBEK-RUSSIAN MEETING ON AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY HELD IN TASHKENT
The meeting of the Russian producers of techniques and equipments for the agriculture with their Uzbek colleagues was held in Tashkent, the Narodnoye slovo newspaper reported.
The heads of companies that are part of the Association of producers of agricultural techniques for the “Soyuzagromash” agricultural and industrial complex are reported to have been among the high profile delegation of Russia.
During its visit the delegation has learned about the work of Tashkent Tractor Plant, which since March this year has joined the “Soyuzagromash”. Besides, the delegation members visited farms and machine and tractor depots, including those in Bukhara and Samarkand.
During the roundtable the sides have been briefed in detail about the work on the development of agricultural machinery now being accomplished in the partner country.
LATVIAN BUSINESS DELEGATION TO VISIT UZBEKISTAN
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Uzbekistan together with the Trade-Industrial Chamber of Latvian Republic are organizing a visit of the delegation of Latvian entrepreneurs to Tashkent, capital city of Uzbekistan, on October 8-10, according to Uzreport.com Business Information portal.
The delegation consists of heads of nine large Latvian companies operating in the spheres of metal and wood processing, peat extraction, logistics, agriculture, building materials production.
It is planned to hold an Uzbek-Latvian business forum and cooperation exchange between the businesses of the two countries at Radisson SAS Tashkent hotel on October 9.
SOCIETY
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN TASHKENT DISCUSSES GLOBALIZATION PROCESS
Academy for State and Social Construction (ASSC) under the President of Uzbekistan organized an international conference on the globalization process, its economic, political, social and legal aspects on September 27-29.
Representatives of ASSC and international experts participated in the work of the conference entitled "Globalization process: economic, political, social and legal aspects".
The participants discussed such issues as agriculture in globalization process, globalization and modernization in Central Asia, political and legal aspects of globalization and experience of Russia as well as other related issues.
Fathulla Irgashev, Deputy Rector of the ASSC, said: "Today, we discuss important issues, which are actual for the development of the international community in general and for the Republic of Uzbekistan, as well as other post-Soviet states. One of the main objectives of these countries' foreign policy is to find decent place in the globalization processes of our time."
The seminar was organized within the joint project of ASSC and UNDP "Improving Public Sector Management Skills through Building Training and Research Capacity of the State Academy for State and Public Construction under the President of Uzbekistan". The project aims to enhance capacity of the ASSC to advance public sector management skills to support the development and effective implementation of the public policy in Uzbekistan.
JAPANESE STUDENTS VISIT UNDP-BACKED LEGAL CLINIC
A group of law students of Nagoya University (Japan) visited Uzbekistan from 28 September to 3 October to get acquainted with the legal system of Uzbekistan and study the practice of legal clinics.
The Japanese delegation visited Legal Clinic under University of World Economy and Diplomacy (UWED), which is backed by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Uzbekistan.
UNDP supports Legal Clinic through its project "Legal Aid and Legal Literacy for Better Access to Justice". The main objectives of the project are to improve access to justice for people, who cannot afford or have limited access to legal services, such as women, children, the poor, the elderly and people with disabilities and to increase quality of legal services through training of law students.
During their visit to Uzbekistan, the Japanese students participated in several trainings and lectures. They also met clinicians of Legal Clinic under the UWED. The Uzbek side presented the activity of Legal Clinic.
On October 3, the Japanese delegation participated in play of moot court at Legal Clinic's court room.
‘MODERN UZBEK VIDEO ART’ PRESENTED IN BIENNALE IN TASHKENT
The Fourth Tashkent International Biennale of Modern Arts “New: illusion and reality” is now continuing in Tashkent. on October 4 the presentation of the project “The modern Uzbek video art” was held at the Cinema Museum, the Uzbekistan National News Agency reported.
About 20 works of the Uzbek artists, who are engaged in video art, were demonstrated at the event. Among them there are “V efire” (‘On air’) by Arkadiy Kabulov and Anvar Kalandarov, “Tri etapa zhizni” (‘Three stages of life’) by Aleksey Ulko, “Sentimentalniy Giniol” (‘Sentimental Giniol’) by Oleg Karpov and Vyacheslav Useinov, as well as “Radio Tupratikons” (‘Tupratikons radio’) by Ruslan Kurtvaliev and Askar Urmanov.
The same day the “Mifi i realnost” (‘Myths and reality’) exhibition was opened at the Exhibition of Culture and Arts of Uzbekistan Gallery. The presentation of projects “Put k pravosudiyu” (‘Path to justice’) by Arkadiy Kabulov from Uzbekistan, “Pamir, sleduyushiy den…” (‘Pamir, the next day…’) by Georgiy Mamedov from Tajikistan, “Poslovitsi” (‘Sayings’) of Grigoriy Mayofis from Russia and “Gruppa Nilon” (‘Nilon group’) of Konstaninos Politis from Greece were held at the gallery.
The works of artists from the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, as well as the young Uzbek masters have also been presented at the exhibition.
THEATER SHOW PROMOTES DIALOGUE OF CULTURES
The Theater of Samarkand Historical Costumes “El-merosi” has demonstrated its arts in three countries. The group of the theater traveled to Germany, Belgium and France. The “Elholding” non-governmental organization has supported such endeavor financially, the Pravda Vostoka newspaper reported.
The group is reported to have demonstrated the show program “Mgnoveniya vechnosti” (‘The moments of eternity’), which has come as a rare genre: the ethnography, plastic arts, dance and music had allowed to turn over the pages of the country’s ancient history. The defile of modern costumes with tenderly pouring natural silk served not less the light adding to the main program.
“The Great Silk Road” is the name of the new show program, which is still in the making and soon is expected to join the repertoire of the theater. The mean idea of the colored stage act is the dialect culture in the language of arts, according to the report.