Antoine Blua is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
Ten years ago, a voracious species of plankton-eating jellyfish appeared in the Caspian Sea, posing a serious threat to already declining fish stocks. One potential solution might be introducing a second jellyfish species to prey on the first. But the Caspian's five littoral states have yet to reach an agreement on how best to handle the problem -- leaving the sea in danger of suffering irreversible damage in the meantime.
Ahead of today's meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tashkent, the Uzbek and Russian presidents have signed a treaty of strategic partnership. The document is a significant step in the rapprochement the two countries have undertaken in the past months.
A meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference -- the world's largest Muslim organization -- ends today in Istanbul. Some participants used the conference to address the issue of democratic reform in the Islamic world.
Prague, 14 June 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Officials of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have opened a three-day meeting in Istanbul expected to focus on Iraq, the Middle East, and efforts to promote democracy in the Islamic world.
A two-day high-level international conference to promote dialogue in Eurasia ended on 11 June in Kyrgyzstan with the adoption of a draft document on future European-Asian cultural relations. Participants underscored the need to accept the diverse cultural values of the region's various populations -- and to work together to resolve any security issues that might arise from future culture clashes.
Kyrgyzstan's parliament has voted down two proposals aimed at easing the Central Asian republic's laws on libel and slander.
Since it was built in the 12th century, the walled city inside Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, has survived invasions by Persian armies, bombardment by Russian warships, civil war, revolution, and the 2000 earthquake. But the site is now increasingly threatened by urban development and the absence of conservation policies.
A group of modern-day Vikings is currently sailing the Black Sea en route to the Caspian via the Rioni and Kura rivers in the Caucasus. They are retracing part of a trip that Scandinavian explorers might have made nearly 1,000 years ago.
There are different ways to live and practice religion. An exhibition in Paris is currently trying to show the complexity of the social and cultural transformations urban Muslims are facing in the context of globalization.
Tajikistan's lower house of parliament yesterday adopted a moratorium on the death penalty. The move is part of a broader trend in Central Asia toward the abolition of the death penalty. The Tajik moratorium leaves Uzbekistan as the only republic in the region that continues to carry out executions.
Prague, 2 June 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Human Rights Watch (HRW) has acknowledged its error in attributing the cause of an Uzbek prisoner's death to police torture, after a team of international experts concluded that he had hanged himself.
The contribution of tobacco to death and disease is well documented: tobacco use kills 4.9 million people each year, and this toll is expected to double in the next 20 years. Less attention, however, has been paid to another harmful side effect of tobacco -- its contribution to growing poverty around the world. This year's World No Tobacco Day is calling attention to this particular issue.
China has signed an agreement with Kazakhstan to build by 2005 an oil pipeline to help meet its booming economy's soaring demand for fuel.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has said he will seek re-election in 2006. RFE/RL reports that all of the post-Soviet Central Asian leaders in one way or another have extended their terms in office in order to hold on to power during the past decade.
The Uzbek authorities are making great efforts to control the institutions that educate the state-appointed imams of the country's mosques. RFE/RL looks at a similar situation in France, which has taken the lead in a Europe-wide crackdown on radical clerics.
On the heels of last month's Berlin conference on Afghan reconstruction, the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek this week hosted a forum for Afghanistan's regional neighbors. The three-day conference, which ended today, explored mutually beneficial ways for Iran, Pakistan, and the countries of Central Asia to contribute to the process of rebuilding the war-torn country.
A report issued today by the World Health Organization (WHO) calls for a comprehensive HIV/AIDS strategy that links prevention, treatment, care, and long-term support. RFE/RL looks at the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean nation of Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, where the international community has made significant strides in the fight against the disease.
As of 1 June, state workers in Turkmenistan holding degrees of higher education received outside the country since 1993 will be dismissed from their jobs. Analysts say the move is the latest in a long series of educational restrictions imposed in the Central Asian republic.
Tajik and Russian border services are exploring new forms of cooperation to guard the Tajik-Afghan border -- the crucial first frontier in illicit drug-smuggling routes that carry opium and heroin from Afghanistan through Central Asia and on to Russia and Europe.
3 May 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Tensions between Georgia's central authorities and the breakaway Adjar Autonomous Republic are mounting in the wave of an ultimatum delivered yesterday by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Load more
