Old trees are cut down in the center of Tashkent – the shocking news was spread in the city within a day. Photo by goricvet Planetrees, or platanus, planted at the end of the 19th century, were cut down in the public garden named after Amir Temur (Tamerlane) in Tashkent last week. As officials say, the felling [...]
Uzbekistan's recent release of a leading jailed opposition figure is stoking hopes for warmer relations between Tashkent and the West. But critics of President Islam Karimov's administration caution that the move does not signal Tashkent's intent to change its authoritarian ways.
(With thanks again to the excellent Ken Silverstein), Gulnara Karimova is offering all expenses paid luxury junkets to Tashkent, plus a thousand dollars cash in the pocket, to US bloggers willing to blog about Uzbekistan without mentioning torture, massacre, dictatorship, slavery or environmental destruction. http://harpers.org/archive/2009/11/hbc-90006092 As Obama has entered into a renewed military...
I have been watching the various celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall from the unusual vantage point of Accra. I have no mixed feelings over the fall of Soviet communist control over Europe. I don't think Reagan's use of the phrase "Evil empire" was wrong. The Americans have of course embarked on a new enthusiasm for their own evil empire since. The euphoria of the spread of freedom...
Craig John Murray (born 17 October 1958) is a human rights activist, writer, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Rector of the University of Dundee and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Lancaster School of Law. While at the embassy in Tashkent, he accused the Karimov administration of human rights abuses, a step which, he argued, was against the wishes of the British government...
by TAMMY ROSECRANS , Causecast Editor Uzbekistan is a country riddled with humanitarian crises. The authoritarian government is known for its lack of an independent judicial branch and wide spread human rights abuses against civilians and activists. October 27, it was announced that the European Union has lifted its embargo on the country. The EU placed the sanctions following the Andijan Massacre...
This was done in all of our names and we should all, individually, be deeply and profoundly ashamed: We were receiving CIA intelligence. MI-6 and the CIA share all their intelligence. So I was getting all the CIA intelligence on Uzbekistan and it was saying that detainees had confessed to membership in al-Qaeda and being in training camps in Afghanistan and to meeting Osama bin Laden. One way and...
BY DEIRDRE TYNAN The European Union appears poised to lift its four-year arms embargo against Uzbekistan. EU officials say strategic necessity is exerting pressure on Brussels to fully engage Tashkent. Critics, however, contend that by compromising on principles, the European Union is sacrificing long-term interests for immediate, but likely fleeting gains.
BY ALISHER KHAMIDOV What’s more valuable in Central Asia, natural gas or water? Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan may soon find out. A recent Uzbek move to cut gas supplies has many Kyrgyz worrying about how to stay warm this winter. But experts say the gas cut-off may end up being counterproductive for Tashkent because it will encourage Kyrgyzstan to develop its hydro-power generating capacity. That...
Mumbai: Somdev Dev Varman demolished the 281st ranked Spanish player Gillermo Olaso 6-3, 6-2 to enter the second round of the $125,000 ATP Challenger men's event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Monday.
BY DEIRDRE TYNAN Authorities in Uzbekistan contend that Shaukat Makhmudov, one of three men killed in a Tashkent shootout in late August, was a top figure in the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Makhmudov, officials add, is suspected of orchestrating assassinations earlier in the summer and was one of the alleged masterminds of 1999 bombings in Tashkent.
Neweurasia provides a photo-post about the disastrous decay of a once-famous hospital for tuberculosis patients in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.
Reports of shootings in Tashkent on the evening of August 29 have sparked fears the Uzbek government is using the cover of independence celebrations to crack down on alleged militants.