RFE/RL's Turkmen Service is the only international Turkmen-language media reporting independently on political, economic, cultural, and security issues from inside one of the the world’s most reclusive countries.
Russian authorities have released from custody a Turkmen citizen who is wanted in Ashgabat on controversial "extremism" charges.
Authorities in Turkmenistan have introduced a lockdown without any official announcement, continuing to deny a single coronavirus case has been registered in the country.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has ordered the National Security Ministry to impose further controls on the Internet in the tightly controlled Central Asian nation, which is already known for having the world's slowest and most expensive service.
Turkmenistan has stepped up measures to monitor people's lives after the unrest in neighboring Kazakhstan as police disperse people standing together in residential areas, randomly check people's phones, and warn them against posting anti-government statements online.
Turkmenistan’s authoritarian president has called for the end of one of the country’s most iconic sights – a flaming natural gas pit in the desert known as Gates of Hell.
Turkmenistan has been recognized as the country with the slowest Internet in the world, with users needing almost a full day to download a movie.
The sharp weakening of Turkey's national currency, the lira, is hitting Turkmen labor migrants whose families back home depend on remittances.
Turkmenistan has decided to prevent the families of prisoners and migrant workers from purchasing subsidized food, as the state continues to limit access to affordable staples. The measure is expected to affect millions of Turkmen who rely on subsidized food amid poverty and food shortages.
The first lady of Turkmenistan, Ogulgerek Berdymukhammedova, has appeared in the media for the first time since her husband took over the extremely secretive and isolated Central Asian country in December 2006 after the death of his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has put his son Serdar in charge of the country's oil-and-gas sector, in the latest sign that the authoritarian leader could be grooming the 40-year-old to succeed him some day.
Turkmen families who have relatives working abroad may have their subsidized food rations cut from next year as the country struggles with an acute shortage of foodstuffs and a spike in inflation.
Authorities in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, have cut subsidized food rations for residents amid acute shortages and rising prices.
Economic hardship is deepening in Turkmenistan, with continued food shortages and price hikes. But instead of tackling the problem, the government is trying to step up control on people's access to information.
Russian authorities deny that they deported noted Turkmen opposition activist Azat Isakov, who for several years lived in Russia's Moscow region, saying he left of his own accord for his native Turkmenistan where rights groups say he may face imprisonment and torture.
A senior official of the World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed doubts about Turkmenistan's denial of a coronavirus presence within its borders.
Small private shops in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, have been shut down apparently as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus although authorities in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic continue to deny the presence of COVID-19 within the country's borders.
Noted Turkmen opposition activist Azat Isakov, who for several years has lived in Russia's Moscow region, has been reported missing after mysteriously disappearing last month.
Authorities in Turkmenistan, where the government has yet to officially register a single case of coronavirus, have extended restrictions usually imposed to stem the spread of COVID-19.
The wife of a Turkmen activist being held in Turkey and facing deportation says the government in Ashgabat has handed Ankara a list of more than two dozen people it wants arrested and sent back for their activism.
Turkmenistan, whose authoritarian leader claims the Central Asian state has not registered a single case of COVID-19, has secretly recorded some 25,000 deaths linked to the disease since the pandemic began two years ago, a source inside the health-care system says.
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