Central Asia

Since almost all the news revolves and resolves around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, I’m going to try to hit most of the non-SCO news here in the Central Asia Beat this week.

Next week, I’ll try to wrap up SCO developments. . .

Kazakhstan:
–From RFE/RL Newsline, August 16: The Kazakhstan Today news agency, formerly a Rakhat-n-Darigha production, has re-opened after a two-month clampdown.  Now under new management in the wake of Rakhat-gate.
–Terrorist activity stopped in April during Mr. Nazarbaev’s visit to Shymkent.
–Another activity in Chelyabinsk: On August 16th, Kazakhstan’s national railway, Temir Joly, went to Russia in order to learn from Russian Railways more skills for handling passenger traffic.
–The work of election preparation continues: RFE/RL reports that opposition members are recommending voters use paper ballots instead of electronic voting machines; elections are This Saturday, August 18th.  OSCE observers arrived Thursday and were welcomed by Mr. Togaev, Chairman of the Senate of the Parliament.  Must read: Adam Kesher’s roundup at Global Voices Online on the elections.

Kyrgyzstan:
It’s all about SCO: but no.  There’s more.
–Kyrgyzstan plans to upgrade its requirements for its diplomatic service.
–Water shortages may affect Kyrgyzstan’s hydropower output and wreck their ability to export electricity in the region.  This is such bad news.
Kyrgyzstan accesses that global imperative: for public relations to attract investment. 

Mongolia:
–China’s Shenhua Energy may build a coal rail link in Mongolia, at IHT.
–Mongolia and China agree to new meteorological cooperation to help avert the effects and disasters from sandstorms.  No, of course they can’t decide the weather: just what to do about it.
–A look at Japanese sumo wrestling and one of its participants from Mongolia, who is currently in trouble.

Tajikistan:
–Grisly execution video shows up last Sunday on Russian nationalist Web sites.  The video consists of alleged Russian nationalists killing a Tajikistani immigrant and a Daghestani citizen underneath a Nazi flag.  The person who posted it has turned himself in, his computer is confiscated, but no one knows who committed the crimes yet: or who are the “National Socialists of Rus”.  Well, we already know what they are.  Vadim gives the Tajikistan perspective over at neweurasia.net .  And I would like to offer condolences to the Tajikistani and Daghestani people over their loss.
–After talks between the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, nine cooperation agreements are signed, and Azerbaijan’s Mr. Ihlam Aliev announces plans to invest in Tajikistan.
–The International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank helps develop new health and sanitation manuals for Tajikistan’s inspectors. 
–Serious charges against the EBRD in Tajikistan are levelled by John Helmer at Asia Times and also discussed by Joshua over at Registan.net on his way to larger trends in the region.

Turkmenistan:
–CNPC, one of China’s heavy-hitting oil companies, initiates two projects in Turkmenistan this week.
–US Assistant Secretary for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Daniel Sullivan arrived in Ashgabat as the head of the US delegation August 14th to discuss energy cooperation and to urge Turkmenistan to diversify its economy/pipeline destinations and become more transparent.  If anyone would like to call me, I have a lot of ideas about these diversified economy arrangements. 

Uzbekistan:
–Islamic Summit in Tashkent on August 15th by IESCO: the Islamic, Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (based in Rabat, Morocco).  The summit extolled Uzbekistan’s contributions to Islamic culture, and then made a sojourn to Samarkand, to look at the past glory of the Silk Road.
–The OSCE met to train human rights observers in Uzbekistan on August 14th.
–Cotton Expo in Tashkent, next month: September 10-12.
–Trade turnover between Russia and Uzbekistan is up 300% in the last two years. . . whoa.  And, Mr. Sidikov at RFE/RL explains why U.S.-Uzbek trade is not more significant.

Xinjiang Province:
–Major nickel deposit discovered, which is a component of stainless steel, and, well, nickels.
–Supreme People’s Court of China promises to send assistance to Xinjiang’s overburdened criminal court system.
–New Xinjiang analysis at Jane’s.  Unfortunately, only the preview is available, but it explains why, perhaps, the Xinjiang court system is so overburdened . . .

What a dynamic region!  Have a great weekend, everyone, in Central Asia and beyond . . .

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 7:35 am and is filed under Central Asia Beat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.