Bruce Pannier is a Central Asia analyst and appears regularly on the Majlis podcast for RFE/RL.
Fourteen infants have reportedly been infected with the HIV virus in South Kazakhstan Province. They appear to have contracted the virus from transfusions they received at three hospitals.
Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, one of the leading opposition figures in Kazakhstan, has announced his intention to create a new political party that he hopes will be able to challenge the forces supporting President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Miklos Haraszti (file photo) (Courtesy Photo) Media freedom in Central Asia has long been a thorny problem for Western organizations dealing with the region. The post-Soviet administrations there have proven resistant to allowing the sort of freedoms that would allow for criticism of government policies or officials. That presents a number of challenges for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) representative on freedom of the media. That post is held by Hungarian writer, journalist, and human rights defender Miklos Haraszti. OSCE representative Haraszti tells RFE/RL about the challenges for media in Central Asia and areas where the OSCE has tried to help to improve the media climate.
(RFE/RL) One of Kazakhstan's biggest state oil and gas companies, KazMunaiGaz, today announced that the son-in-law of President Nursultan Nazarbaev will chair the company's new board of directors. Timur Kulibaev is married to Nazarbaev's second daughter, Dinara Nazarbaeva. His is a familiar face in Kazakh politics, and he's no newcomer to the oil and gas business. But Kulibaev's promotion to a key strategic sector's top spot has raised some eyebrows nevertheless.
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has received a red-carpet welcome on his arrival in Kyrgyzstan to deliver pledges of huge Russian investment into the former Soviet republic.
The eldest daughter of Kazakhstan's president has urged a consolidation of pro-presidential forces, telling colleagues that it is time to form single party.
Uzbek border guards searching for IMU materials (file photo) (ITAR-TASS) Relations between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have rarely been good since those two former Soviet republics gained independence in late 1991. This month has been particularly harsh on mutual ties, with Tajik and Uzbek authorities trading accusations and counteraccusations over security on their common border. RFE/RL looks at what has prompted the diplomatic rancor this month between Tashkent and Dushanbe.
Leaders from Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan have reaffirmed their commitment to improving mutual ties and signed agreements on fighting terrorism and developing better transportation links at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in eastern China.
Figures from the country's security service and its upper legislature have been implicated in the February slaying of Altynbek Sarsenbaev, along with his driver and a bodyguard.
Kyrgyz officials and local entrepreneurs have long hoped that tourism to Lake Issyk-Kul, which is ringed by eternally snowcapped mountains, might help the cash-strapped economy. But the slow pace of Kyrgyz investment suggests it is up to others to make Issyk-Kul an international hotspot.
Tajikistan's only officially registered Islamic political party is working on two fronts ahead of the presidential election in November to unseat the entrenched incumbent. It hopes to do so by attracting Muslim voters while at the same time distancing itself from the radicalism of banned Islamic groups in the region.
The majestic landscape surrounding the town of Chorkuh provided its name -- "Chorkuh" means "Four Mountains" in Tajik. It is home to 32,000 people who have collectively adopted Shari'a.
A group of some 60 people gathered today in the Kyrgyz border town of Kara-Suu, across the canal from Uzbekistan, to mark the first anniversary of the bloodshed in Andijon. The unsanctioned demonstration called on the world not to forget those who were killed in the eastern Uzbek city last year and to hold Uzbek President Islam Karimov responsible for the bloodshed.
Uzbek opposition figures who fled to Kyrgyzstan after last year's violence in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijon were thwarted their attempts to mark the anniversary with rallies. Kyrgyz law-enforcement agencies confiscated passports and other documents from the organizers after learning of the plans.
An Uzbek woman attempts to cross the Kyrgyz border in Kara-Suu in May 2005 (epa) News of the Uzbek government's Andijon crackdown one year ago emerged from the area along with throngs of frightened Uzbek citizens. Many hurried across the small river that separates their country from Kyrgyzstan, often on hastily constructed bridges. Nearly all of those bridges were subsequently dismantled by Uzbek troops. But one -- the pedestrian bridge in the border town of Kara-Suu -- was kept open to facilitate trade. It is now the busiest crossing point along a 1,100-kilometer border.
In the wake of the May 2005 Andijon bloodshed, Uzbek authorities hounded the opposition and human-rights advocates who were probing what had happened. Some of those who left are now organizing an anniversary demonstration in Kyrgyzstan's second city, Osh.
Kyrgyz imam Rafiq Qori Kamoluddin is an exception among the Muslim prayer leaders of Central Asia. In a region where many states ban the radical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, Kamoluddin allows its members to pray at his mosque. He is by most accounts the only imam in Central Asia to be so bold.
Kazakh journalist Saya Issa was arrested in October 2005 as his country prepared for a presidential election (RFE/RL) Governments in Central Asia have developed numerous means of harassing media organizations and journalists. Using their control of legislatures and the courts, the authorities in all five Central Asian countries have shown at times an eagerness to stifle the efforts on independent reporters.
A European Parliament session in Strasbourg (epa) The European Union is on the verge of concluding a trade agreement with Turkmenistan that critics are calling a sellout to energy interests. They say a pact with Central Asia's most repressive government compromises Western efforts to promote democracy and respect for human rights. The trade deal has passed committee in the European Parliament but still faces potential obstacles in plenary session and the EU Council of Ministers.
Independent journalist Aleksei Volosevich was attacked in Tashkent on November 9 by assailants who left anti-Semitic graffiti (fergana.ru) Journalists working for independent media outlets in Central Asia have more to worry about than meeting deadlines. Across the region they are harassed, intimidated, and sometimes physically attacked. As recently as April 23, a journalist working at an opposition newspaper in Kazakhstan was severely beaten by a group of men.
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