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.
Turkmenistan has begun moving heavy weaponry, helicopters, and other aircraft closer to its border with Afghanistan, and reservists are being put on alert in the capital, a further sign of the worry spreading across Central Asia as Taliban fighters continue major offensives.
Some maternity wards in Turkmenistan offer abandoned babies for illegal adoption to parents willing to pay big money and skip official paperwork, multiple sources tell RFE/RL. They add that some registry office workers who are involved in the illegal adoptions provide false birth certificates.
Turkmenistan's authoritarian ruler Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has replaced the tightly controlled former Soviet republic’s interior minister, saying Mammetkhan Chakiyev is being "moved to another job."
This month marks the 15th anniversary of the politically motivated arrest of Ogulsapar Muradova, an RFE/RL reporter who later died in custody. Despite allegations that she was tortured, the case has never been investigated by the Turkmen authorities who the United Nations blames for her death.
Military recruiters are raiding high schools to round up male students, snatching some 18-year-olds as they finish their final exams.
Residents in Turkmenistan's eastern region of Lebap who owe debts for natural gas are being deprived of the right to purchase subsidized food.
Senior male Turkmen officials and managers of major private companies have been ordered to shave their heads and wear a traditional Turkmen skullcap as signs of mourning following the death last month of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's father.
Two Turkmen nationals have been found dead in their apartment in Istanbul after apparently consuming large amounts of bootleg alcohol.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has pardoned hundreds of inmates on the occasion of a religious holiday, including jailed Jehovah's Witnesses.
World War II veterans in the isolated Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan have been ordered to pay for the gifts they are scheduled to receive on behalf of the authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov at a Victory Day commemoration marked annually on May 9 in most ex-Soviet republics.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's penchant for white is well known among drivers in the Central Asian nation.
Turkmen regional authorities have banned lines outside state stores that sell food at subsidized prices after Deputy Prime Minister Serdar Berdymukhammedov, the president's son, publicly said that "crowds near stores discredit" his father.
A Turkmen activist and outspoken critic of the tightly controlled Central Asian nation's government who resides in Istanbul says she has come under pressure in Turkey ahead of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Ashgabat.
Turkmenistan's authoritarian president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, who is also the head of the government in the tightly controlled state, has added another title to his name: the speaker of the newly established upper chamber of parliament.
Turkmenistan’s already battered currency slid sharply, as black market rates reached 40 manats to the U.S. dollar, down nearly 50 percent since January.
A foreign-based Turkmen opposition group says security officers in that Central Asian nation have arrested at least two activists over leaflets calling for the resignation of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.
Turkmenistan’s authoritarian leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has been elected as a member of a newly established senate, in a vote in which there was no opposition and only indirect suffrage.
Turkmenistan held its first elections to a newly created senate on March 28 with 112 candidates contesting 48 senate seats.
In Turkmenistan's Mary Province, police are detaining beggars and people who look unkempt or are wearing old clothes. Police sources claim some of the detainees are sent as a "free labor force" to work at government-owned farms.
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