Antoine Blua is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
How do threats from global warming stack up among countries of the former Soviet Union? Could past environmental ills prove to be that region's undoing?
As the globe marks World AIDS Day today, the United Nations is warning that the disease continues to progress in many countries, most dramatically in the regions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
A new survey indicates that the number of endangered Siberian tigers living in the Russian Far East is dwindling, primarily due to poaching.
A court in Turkmenistan has overturned a five-year jail sentence handed down last week to a biologist whose environmental organization was shut down by the state in 2003. The case marks the second time in three years that Andrei Zatoka has been sentenced and detained before being released, and highlights the difficulties activists commonly encounter in Central Asia.
As politicians struggle to reach agreement on global emissions cuts ahead of the UN's climate change conference in Copenhagen next month, international religious leaders have stepped in with their own ambitious plans.
Nearly five weeks before the start of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, the United Nations has signaled that it has reduced its expectations about reaching agreement on a new treaty to slow global warming.
As instability and violence continue in Afghanistan, some are laying the groundwork for a better future. Despite the odds, the country's rich cultural history, scenic landscapes, and remote locations are helping spark a tourism revival.
Turkey and Armenia have announced plans for a deal aimed at normalizing relations. The agreement still requires approval by the countries' parliaments, but it is seen as a step toward ending hostilities stemming from the World War I mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
Russian authorities and conservationists are going ahead with a project to restore a population of Persian leopards to Sochi, where the most intense activity has otherwise focused preparations for the looming Olympics.
The Pakistani military says a feared Taliban commander has died from injuries sustained during a military operation in which he was arrested last week. The announcement comes amid concerns over an ongoing human rights crisis, including allegations of summary executions of suspected militants, in Pakistan's northwestern areas.
During the Cold War, both U.S. and Soviet scientists explored using nuclear explosions for "peaceful" purposes. Decades later, residents near a test site in eastern Kazakhstan say authorities are ignoring their complaints of serious health effects.
Afghanistan’s postelection crisis has deepened, as the country’s Independent Election Commission declared incumbent President Hamid Karzai the preliminary winner of last month’s poll while EU observers have alleged massive fraud.
Drought-stricken Iraq has accused Turkey, Syria, and Iran of taking too much water from the country's main rivers and their tributaries, leaving its hydropower production and agriculture high and dry.
As the Arabic saying goes, “The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, the Iraqis read.” As the world mark International Literacy Day, we examine the situation in Iraq, which was once held up as a regional model for education, but today is struggling.
For almost half a century, the Bukhara deer had not been seen in the wild in the forests along the Syr Darya river. But the species has now returned to Kazakhstan's southern Turkestan district with the recent release of ten deer into their native habitat.
Despite continued violence and political instability, Afghanistan is taking measures to protect its natural heritage. The country established its first national park this spring and, more recently, created its first-ever list of endangered and threatened species.
Kashgar's old city has survived, and remains an important Islamic cultural center for the Uyghurs, the Turkic ethnic group living in Xinjiang. But Kashgar's rich Central Asian heritage is being threatened by an ambitious government redevelopment plan that some say has a hidden agenda.
Foreign ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial countries have said they "deplore" the postelection violence in Iran, and called on Tehran to settle the crisis "soon" through democratic dialogue and peaceful means.
A three-day meeting of G8 foreign ministers opens today in Italy's Adriatic city of Trieste. The talks were originally due to focus heavily on Afghanistan and were to include representatives from its neighboring countries. But the meeting has since been overshadowed by events in Iran -- even as Tehran announced it was pulling out of the gathering.
Analysts believe that Kim Jong-il, whose power base stems from his support for the military, may be using the growing tension to give him greater leverage over power elites at home to nominate his own successor.
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