Posts tagged as:

Central Asia

Russia, the EU, pipelines and Central Asia

October 30, 2007

Two blogs about Central Asia, writing about Russia’s energy relations with the European Union. Yes, there is a reason behind their madness.
First up is Josh over at Registan, quickly followed by Ben at NewEurasia.

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Neweurasia interviews Martha Brill Olcott

April 9, 2007

Neweurasia has published its second interview with Martha Brill Olcott – probably one of the best known Central Asia scholars in America today.
The interview is wide-ranging, and covers many of the major issues facing Central Asia today.  Watch out, in particular, for her controversial thoughts on the Andijon massacre.

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Ethnic Minorities in Central Asia

March 31, 2007

I can’t recommend NewEurasia’s series of posts on ethnic minorities in Central Asia highly enough.
Russia watchers in particular, might be interested in the articles on:

Russian-Germans in Tajikistan
Russians in Kyrgyzstan
Russian-Germans from Kazakhstan returning home (Part 1 and Part 2)
Chechens in Kazakhstan
Russians in Uzbekistan

Fascinating stuff.

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Registan.net blocked in Uzbekistan

March 16, 2007

Central Asia blog Registan.net reports that it has been blocked to internet users in Uzbekistan.  The only way to read Registan from within the Uzbekistan is now by proxy server.  Nathan writes:
As far as we are aware, this is the first time that the Uzbek government has decided to block Registan.net, and it is unknown [...]

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Oil wars

January 8, 2007

It looks as though Russia’s neighbours have made a New Year’s resolution for 2007 – to demonstrate to Russia that they too can flex their energy muscles. In the past few days:

Belarus have slapped a tax on Russian oil transiting Belarus, and siphoning off Transneft’s oil to pay for it.  In response, Transneft have shut [...]

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Turkmenistan President dies

December 21, 2006

The breaking news this morning is that Turkmenistan’s oddball dictator / President Saparmurat Niyazov died of a heart attack late last night.
The news was announced on state television, over the image of a Turkmen flag, surrounded by a black border:
“Turkmenbashi (Head of the Turkmen) the Great has died.”
Official confirmation came shortly afterwards from a senior [...]

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Two Central Asia quotes I liked

November 24, 2005

There’s nothing particularly worthy about this Simon Tisdall comment that appeared in British newspaper The Guardian today. But I did like these two quotes that he picked out and, frankly, that’s all the excuse I need.
Uzbekistan:
“Its the world’s last vacuum,” said Kalman Mizsei, regional director of the United Nations development programme.
Elections in Kazakhstan:
Mr Nazarbayev’s [...]

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Russia, China AND India to hold joint military exercises?

October 16, 2005

For China and India to become involved in a joint military exercise with Russia is a pretty far-fetched idea at the moment, I’d say,, but Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, in India to observe a joint Russian-Indian military exercise, has been busy talking up the idea.
Russian-Indian-Chinese military exercises could be held in the future under [...]

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Closed cities from the inside

October 10, 2005

Last week I wrote about the disgraceful number of closed cities in Russia, another of those leftovers from an anarchic age that Russia remains addicted to, despite (or perhaps because of) the restrictions it places on the human rights of their 1.7 million residents.
In a rather timely decision, the BBC have just decided [...]

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Problems for the Russian space industry

October 10, 2005

Following the loss of a European Space Agency satellite – Cryosat – that was designed to map polar ice, the Russian Space Agency has suspended all flights using the Rokot booster system.
The rocket’s second stage failed to separate following the launch and the Cryosat satellite fell into the Arctic Ocean, Russian and European [...]

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Neweurasia blogs

October 5, 2005

Neweurasia is a family of weblogs from around Central Asia, put together by the indefatigable Ben Paarmann of thinking-east.net. Currently, the project has launched weblogs from:
Azerbaijan
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

I’m sure more will follow in the coming weeks – check out their homepage for updates
(And, yes, I found out about this great new project from Nathan at registan.net, [...]

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Russia to show Americans by interviewing Bin Laden

August 4, 2005

Pravda.ru, the only Russian news site where you will hear nothing but the truth (ahem), claim that Russian journalists are working on an interview with Osama Bin Laden.  This, of course, has nothing at all to do with ABC’s decision to screen an interview with Shamil Basayev… 
In the meantime, as long as the USA [...]

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Thinking East – new issue

July 29, 2005

Thinking East Issue 3.5 has just been published with articles covering Central Asia, the Caucasus, plus several more thematic articles on religion. 

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US military bases – the economic impact

July 14, 2005

Intel Dump has a post about US basing strategy which, as part of its argument repeats a claim that the US base in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, contributes so heavily to the local economy that it is worth around 5% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP – a number that seems suspiciously high to me.
The original article – US Bases [...]

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Bakiyev wins Kyrgyz election

July 11, 2005

Kurmanbek Bakiyev has won the Presidential election in Kyrgyzstan.  Bakiyev, who was running from a strong starting platform – he was already the interim President following the toppling of Askar Akayev back in March – won an impressive 80% of the vote.  My scepticism says that’s perhaps a little too impressive although Nathan, of registan.net, [...]

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