Gee, I hate when I’m wrong. I was rooting for Kazakhstan and OSCE chairmanship, but I didn't think they’d get the chance after Rakhat-gate blew into the stratosphere. But they have it, which, as I said, and against most of the reactions, I think is a good thing. As noted in a great backgrounder by […]
Gazprom agreed on November 27th to hike its price for Turkmenistan's gas: from USD 100 per cubic meter (cum) to USD 130 starting January of 2008. In July of 2008, Gazprom will start paying USD 150 per cum, through December, when the price will undoubtedly change again. This is a long overdue for Turkmenistan, and […]
Last week, Time published a story by Laura Blue based upon the findings of Spain's DARA on the Humanitarian Response Index, a new tool for discovering efficiency in international aid. Time's headline was “U.S. ranked low in HRI” , which gets that American competitiveness going. On the other hand, it's probably more important to see what […]
Yesterday, RFE/RL posted a great article on “Securing an Outcome” which explains a lot about how elections can be skewed and “unfree” by Western democratic standards. Most of them are reminiscent of Tammany Hall New York: the use of patronage to buy votes/ensure loyalty, stuffing ballot boxes, absentee votes, registering dead people as live voters, […]
UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon has designated 2008 as the Year of Water Sanitation, a worthy effort which dovetails into public health and climate change issues–and which Central Asian states could use to their benefit. According to the UN, investing $10 billion a year could halve the proportion of people without basic toilet facilities by 2015. This […]
Before NATO, there was Afghanistan's Taliban movement (you can't call it a government, because it offered no protection and no services to its people). And the new Taliban, neo-Taliban, or whatever we call them have the same, tawdry, consistent practice of gratuitous cruelty in this regard– Here's the whole story from AFP wire, as printed by the Pakistan […]
Today the World Bank announced the approval of a new loan to Kazakhstan for developing better customs procedures. The total project cost is USD 62 million, with Kazakhstan committing 43.5 million and the World Bank 18.5 million to the effort. This is a fantastic step for the state, and it dovetails with many of the […]
Thirty or more pages out of eighty-five in a new report from swisspeace discusses private security contracting in Afghanistan. The report lists its methodologies, which is at least five steps up from the normal analysis. (links below). Due to its extensiveness and care, the report gives some bona-fide examination of the issues in regard to Afghanistan. Paramount to all the contracting arguments […]
A few months ago, I regretfully removed a Xinjiang news and analysis blog from the blogroll here at FPA Central Asia, as its site had disappeared. I’m happy to note that there is another new news blog for Xinjiang–we’ll be back up to two. The name of the blog is New Dominion, and it's looking good. […]
The moral high ground Today, the International Crisis Group has sent out a bunch of useful information on Central Asia, and I can't wait to read all of the in-depth work they’ve done on Pakistan. On Turkmenistan, ICG's Mr. Schutte at has also written a new op-ed, featured in the EU Observer, about clarifying the goals, aims, […]
For those of you and myself, who think I’m getting too much news from Ferghana.ru lately? Well, IWPR is gone now, as well as Mr. Saipov, what else can I do? Little by little, our eyes and ears are closed–the voices of Uzbekistan are silenced. In an earlier post, I said there wasn't much news […]
Recently there has been some new talk of energy cooperation out there in the international discourse: three energy groups, and one forgotten energy group. Stick with me, here: it's all good, and useful stuff for those of us contemplating small loaves of bread, higher gasoline and heating oil prices. International Energy Forum: Yesterday I attended […]
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