Latest Central Asia News
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ECO summit brings no change
By Anar Valiyev Last month, Baku hosted the 12th summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). The presidents of Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, as well as the prime minister of Turkey attended the event. ECO was established in 1985 as a regional, inter-state economic organization for the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia. Seven new states - ...
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A Wolfe loose as Miami meets Moscow
A Wolfe loose as Miami meets Moscow Back to Blood: A Novel by Tom Wolfe Reviewed by John Helmer MOSCOW - The value difference and profit opportunity between a genuine piece of art and a fake are so large there's no deterring entrepreneurial forgers. Until now, the cleverest schemes have, ethnically speaking, been the specialty of Englishmen, Americans, and well-known art auction ...
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Ukraine imports gas from Europe
By Oleg Varfolomeyev As Russia refuses to cut gas prices for Ukraine and proceeds with its South Stream pipeline project - aimed at diminishing Gazprom's dependence on Ukrainian gas pipelines - Ukraine has announced plans to further cut Russian gas imports. Even more notably, Ukraine began buying gas from the German company RWE this month. The Ukrainian government believes this ...
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Crime pays in Kyrgyzstan
By Chris Rickleton BISHKEK - One morning last year in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Dilnoza awoke to find her brand-new Toyota Corolla missing. She knew immediately whom to call, and it wasn't her local police precinct. Dilnoza sought the help of a private security agency. And after six days of searching, the firm's operatives tracked down and recovered Dilnoza's car, which was ...
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Russia-Uzbekistan rowjeopardizes bilateral ties
investigation, O'zdunorbita continuously violated national legislation by illicitly operating 48 base stations in various parts of the country, including 24 stations based out of Tashkent. On July 17, Uzbekistan's Communications Agency suspended the company's operating license for 10 days. On July 30, the Tashkent city court further extended this suspension for a period ...
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Kazakhstan wipes blood off the map
on October 27 and, if it passes the bureaucratic hurdles, would officially remove the name Zhanaozen from the map. Nurbol Telegenov, the head of the province's internal policies department, told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service that the final decision would be made in Astana. Hot topicTelegenov noted, however, that the proposal had already become a hot topic of discussion. ...
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Tajikistans new roadsboost civil military links
By Mark Vinson On October 27, Tajikistan's President Emomalii Rahmon formally inaugurated the Shahriston tunnel along the Dushanbe-Khujand highway. The 5,253-meter tunnel cuts the time required to drive between the capital of Dushanbe and Tajikistan's second-largest city, Khujand (Leninabad), from eight to less than four hours. The Chinese-built project began six years ago and ...
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China Russia and Obamas second coming
By M K Bhadrakumar Barack Obama's four-year second term in office as the president of the United States will be setting the tone of the final countdown on China's emergence as a superpower. The power dynamic in Asia-Pacific becomes a crucial template in this historic process. While the US can count on Japan and Australia as time-tested allies, its cogitations with China and ...
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Kazakhstan US sign new energy plan
By Richard Weitz The latest meeting of the Kazakhstani-US Energy Partnership Commission took place in Washington on October 15-16, 2012. The two delegation heads, Kazakhstan's Minister of Oil and Gas Sauat Mynbayev and the US Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, signed a Joint Action Plan for 2012 - 2013 that promotes cooperation in four broad categories: nuclear security and ...
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Eid al-Adha a Russian holiday
Eid al-Adha, a Russian holiday? By Chris Monday Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their ...
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All Central Asian roads lead to Muscovy
All Central Asian roads lead to Muscovy By Himar Arjun Singh Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please ...
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Russias Korea projects gather dust
By Stephen Blank In August 2011, Russia signed what appeared to be a momentous agreement with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea - DPRK), an accord that marked Kim Jong-il's last great foreign policy accomplishment. North Korea's Supreme Leader's last major foreign policy initiative was the August summit in Moscow, where he announced his willingness to ...
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Tamerlane through Central Asian eyes
Tamerlane through Central Asian eyes The Legendary Biographies of Tamerlane: Islam and Heroic Apocrypha in Central Asia by Ron SelaReviewed by Dmitry Shlapentokh This well-researched book focuses on what seems to be a very narrow subject - the written history of Timur (Tamerlane), ruler of a vast Central Asian empire in the late 14th century, with Samarkand as the capital. Similar to ...
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Gazprom closes on South Stream goal
By Margarita Assenova Russia is moving rapidly to start building the South Stream natural gas pipeline before the end of the year. On October 29, Serbia became the first Gazprom partner to announce its final investment decision on the construction of South Stream. Bulgaria will follow suit on November 9; Hungary and Slovenia are expected to adopt similar decisions by November 15. The ...
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US Silk Road plans spin fragile thread
By Roman Muzalevsky The visit to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan this month of the US Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs, Reta Jo Lewis, to discuss Washington's vision of a "New Silk Road" across Central Asia comes ahead of the pull-out of coalition forces from Afghanistan in 2014. It also comes a year after the US launched the New Silk Road Strategy ...
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Protest weary Kyrgyz turn to parliament
By Igor Rotar Despite the predictions of Kyrgyz and international analysts, a swift arrest and sentencing of the three Kyrgyzstani lawmakers who tried to capture the parliament building did not spark serious riots. On October 3, opposition party Ata-Jurt and parliamentary members Sadyr Zhaparov and Kamchibek Tashiyev galvanized a crowd of around 500 protesters in Bishkek who were ...
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Russia struggles to drawTajikistan into Customs Union
By Sergei Blagov Russian officials have reiterated pledges to boost economic cooperation with Tajikistan. Meanwhile, the authorities in Dushanbe seem to remain hesitant on some issues, notably the country's possible membership in the Russian-led economic grouping, the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.When Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Tajikistan on ...
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Syria Waiting for someone named Obama
Went to town Now, the intriguing part is that it was left to a third party to resort to shrill rhetoric - the United States. The State Department spokeswoman in Washington used harsh language to allege that Moscow was pursuing a "morally bankrupt" policy on Syria. Victoria Nuland said: "No responsible country ought to be aiding and abetting the war machine of the Assad ...
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Kazakhstan to upgrade refinery production
By Georgiy Voloshin On October 2 and 3, Kazakhstan's capital hosted an annual gathering of the Kazenergy Association, which is comprised of 50 of the biggest players in the oil and gas sectors as well as the non-hydrocarbon sector, including foreign and domestic companies. The association was created back in November 2005 and has the status of a not-for-profit membership ...
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CIS nations set date for free-trade zone
By Sergei Blagov The latest top-level meeting of the oldest post-Soviet grouping, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), pledged to enact their free-trade arrangements next year. However, the CIS free-trade zone (FTZ) agreement has not been ratified by some signatory nations, while other CIS member states have continued to refrain from joining the deal. During the meeting of the ...
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Uzbek voices muted in Kyrgyzstan
By RFE/RL In June 2010, southern Kyrgyzstan erupted in violence between the Uzbek minority and Kyrgyz majority. Almost 500 people were killed, hundreds injured, and many thousands left homeless in the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions. Most of the victims were ethnic Uzbeks and many members of the minority have since been tried and sentenced to long ...
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Kyrgyzstan flirts with Russian ambitions
By Dmitry Shlapentokh Recent agreements signed between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kyrgyz Republic counterpart, Almazbek Atambayev, are replete with mutual benefits. Russia affirmed the presence of its military bases in Kyrgyzstan, whereas the tiny Central Asian country Kyrgyzstan received a promise from Moscow over the building of a cascade of hydropower stations and ...
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Russia bridges Middle Eastern divides
By M K Bhadrakumar A multi-billion dollar arms deal with Iraq, a summit meeting with Turkey, a fence-mending exercise with Saudi Arabia, a debut with Egypt's Sphinx-like Muslim Brothers - all this is slated to happen within the period of a turbulent month in the Middle East. And all this is to happen when the United States' "return" to the region after the hurly-burly ...
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Moscow beckons Pakistans Kayani
Moscow beckons Pakistan's Kiani By M K Bhadrakumar The phrase coined by the 17th-century English philosopher Francis Bacon is: "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain." So, if Russian President Vladimir Putin won't come to Islamabad on Tuesday, then Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiani will still go to Moscow. The ...
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Siberia placed to be the new Middle East
originates from a volatile region with a lion's share of the supply passing through narrow waterways that could easily be sealed off to tankers. More than any other market factors, it is country risk , the threat emanating from political events in one country or the region, that pose the greatest threat to the stability of the oil market. Due to the vital importance of oil in the ...
Kyrgyzstan Featured
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Kyrgyzstan must stick to long-term development plans
While news of the political unrest and government change in early 2010 dominates the world headlines, Kyrgyzstan faces an uncertain future as long-term plans for infrastructure development are thrown into disarray and uncertainty.
Kyrgyzstan is one of the poorest countries in Central Asia and stands to benefit greatly from long-term development plans initiated under the auspices of the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program, if the interim government can move on from the current political crisis and stabilize the country’s economy and political future. Read more
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