Page 48 - mag bne_November2017_20171102

48 I Eurasia bne November 2017
SEE: Foreign ownership
large extent responsible for the increas- ing severity and frequency of the “dzuds” – extremely cold winters that hit the country every few years, during which millions of livestock are killed. A government decision to remove regula- tions that prevented overherding in the 1990s, together with increasingly hot summers and more extreme winters, has led to recent dzuds taking a heavy toll on herders. Hundreds of thousands have given up their nomadic way of life and migrated to shanty towns around Ulan Bataar, which has brought its own set of environmental problems in terms of the chronic air pollution in the city.
Hot weather is also causing severe prob- lems this year, as drought forced Mongo- lia to suspend its grain exports, a setback for the country’s plans to diversity its economy away from over-reliance on com- modity exports such as copper and coal.
Temperatures in the landlocked country have already risen by 2°C in the last 70 years, three times faster than the global average, the United Nations Environment Programme says. That has brought about rising desertification rates, the melting of glaciers and drying rivers and lakes, threatening livelihood.
1.4
1.05 0.7 0.35 0
Effect of a 1˚C increase in temperature on per capita output (%)
ences within countries, meaning that just because warming would result in an overall increase in output in CEE/CIS countries, it doesn’t mean they would avoid a weighty humanitarian cost and damage to some economic sectors.
For example, Southeast Europe already experiences long hot summers and
this year droughts have hit agriculture and pose a threat to hydropower produc- tion in parts of the region. Large parts of
Central Asia are desert and the region is also vulnerable to climate change.
“Climate change is likely to create economic winners and losers at both individual and sectorial levels, even in countries where the effect might be moderate or positive on average,” the IMF warns.
This even includes Mongolia, where climate change is believed to be to a
Affidavit claims Gulnara Karimova turned major Uzbek telecoms operator into cash cow
Nizom Khodjayev in Tashkent
Court documents assert that Gulnara Karimova, the elder daughter of Uzbekistan’s late long-ruling autocrat Islam Karimov, used tactics of intimidation to wrest control of a major telecoms operator and turn it into a cash cow that she could draw on at her whim, RFE/RL reported on October 12.
www.bne.eu
Karimova disappeared from the public eye three years ago and was report-
edly placed under house arrest. In July, almost a year after the death of her father, it was confirmed by Uzbekistan’s chief prosecutor that in 2015 Karimova was convicted of “economic crimes” and sentenced to five years of “restricted free- dom”. In 2010, a leaked US diplomatic
cable described her as “the single most hated person in the country”. Police in several countries have spent years trying to untangle the story of how Karimova allegedly came to squeeze a fortune out of the Uzdunrobita company.
RFE/RL obtained court documents compiled by Swedish prosecutors
Mongolia Russia
Estonia Kazakhstan
Latvia Kyrgyz Republic
Lithuania Belarus
Armenia Poland
Slovak Republic Czech Republic
Ukraine