From the category archives:

Kyrgyzstan

Oh, Actual Terrorists

by Joshua Foust

Did you see the IMU shootout in Jalalabad? No, not the Jalalabad that hasn’t seen an IMU militant since 2001. I mean the one in Kyrgyzstan.
The press secretary of Kyrgyzstan’s Jalal-Abad regional administration says five armed individuals killed by Kyrgyz national security troops were members of the banned extremist group the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan [...]

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Another Uzbek Border “Incident”

by Joshua Foust

In early May, Ferghana.ru reported that Alisher Boikuziev, of Zafarabad, Tajikistan, was gunned down and beaten by Uzbek border security agents in Syr Darya Oblast in Uzbekistan.
Now less than a month later, Uzbek border security agents have killed a Kyrgyz citizen and unilaterally set up a border post along the main road of Jalalabad [...]

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Tracking Central Asia’s Nuclear Traces

by Joshua Foust

Recently, three Chinese tourists from Xinjiang bought a 600-lb piece of “glittering treasure” at a flea market in Kyrgyzstan. Upon sending a piece of it to a lab at Tsinghua University in Beijing, they discovered it was an enormous hunk of depleted uranium. The tourists were unharmed, and the police chose to take no action [...]

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Quick Hits

by Joshua Foust

In no particular order:

The Pentagon is claiming is it still negotiating access to the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan. Color me skeptical. To say the least.
Richard “Af-Pak” Holbrooke supposedly has 20 aides at a cost of millions of dollars. Now, don’t get me wrong—his retinue is a pittance compared with, say, General Petraeus’—but the number [...]

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The Mysterious Murder of Sanjarbek Kadyraliev

by Joshua Foust

Sanjarbek Kadyraliev, the Speaker of the Kyrgyz Parliament, was “shot to hindhead,” according to Ferghana.ru. The Jamestown Foundation sees this as “yet another” routine political assassination (according to anonymous “Kyrgyz experts”), but this is almost certainly too simplistic a view. While they note that all the recently murdered political figures (that is, post-2005), they also [...]

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Just a Heads Up…

by michaelhancock

…because I wanted to make sure that everyone has seen at least part of the excellent yellow journalism coming out of Russia this month.  This is a couple weeks old now, but Reuters thought enough of it to actually report on it when only the first clips were released, but now you can see the [...]

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Akayev’s Last Ambassador Has No Irony, Memory

by Joshua Foust

Now this is classy:
A Siberian wind is now blowing through Kyrgyzstan’s political landscape. It is viewed by many as a process of Russification. That is to say, Kyrgyzstan is becoming much more like Russia. It maintains a semblance of democratic institutions, but in fact it is looking more and more like a presidential dictatorship where [...]

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Oh, ‘Bama – Here we go

by michaelhancock

Happy Nowruz/Nauryz/Navruz/No’ruz Central Asia!  May the next year be brighter, happier, and better for all of you.
Registan readers, perhaps by now you’ve heard some of the news.  Well, there’s been a bit of news.
First off, Kyrgyzstan is going to hold elections. They will be in July, and not July of 2010. In four [...]

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Kyrgyzstan’s Annual ‘Tulip’ Protests?

by michaelhancock

Remember when the Tulip Revolution took place, and Akaev’s corrupt, kleptocratic, strong-arm government was replaced by Bakiev’s shiny, happy, fun-time government?  Well, if you missed it, it was great.  Unfortunately, Bakiev’s government of truth and beauty has been replaced by the diabolically corrupt and autocratic leader Bakiev.  How long will the Krygyz people endure under [...]

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Central Asia and the World Financial Crisis

by michaelhancock

Greetings, gentle Registanis.  I spotted a couple interesting stories with similar themes.  The theme might best be titled, to borrow from the Daily Show, Clusterf@#$ to the Poor House [Central Asian Edition]  More after the jump.

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