Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

RFE/RL Central Asia Report 8/22/2011 8:27:51 PM A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about the five countries of Central Asia. For more stories on Central Asia, please visit and bookmark our Central Asia page .

 

Fourth Arrest In Kyrgyz Tourist Death Police in northern Kyrgyzstan have arrested a fourth suspect in the robbing and fatal beating of a Kazakh tourist. More   Calls For Kyrgyz Ex-Minister's Detention Relatives of those who died during antigovernment protests in Kyrgyzstan last year are demanding former Defense Minister Baktybek Kalyev's return to detention. More   Tajik Demand For Extra Hajj Dollars The Tajik authorities have announced that the price of the hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this year has risen to $3,348, payable in dollars only. More   Kazakh Official Under Investigation Kazakh financial police have launched a criminal investigation against a former top official who is currently living in Switzerland. More   The Shady Think Tank Honoring The Tajik President It has no Brussels office, the Romanian EU embassy has never heard of it, and neither has any other EU diplomat or Brussels wonk that I spoke to. More   Tajiks Who Studied Abroad Face Charges Police in southern Tajikistan have opened criminal cases against 22 former students at Islamic universities and religious schools abroad who returned to Tajikistan in the past year. More   Watching The Soviet Coup From Central Asia Twenty years ago, an attempted coup took place in Moscow as a last-ditch effort to save the Soviet Union. The coup collapsed within three days, ironically speeding up the demise of the Soviet Union and paving the way for Soviet republics to gain independence. RFE/RL speaks to Central Asian politicians about how they remember the events of August 19-21, 1991. More   Podcast: Stepping Out Of The Shadow Of The Soviet Empire In Episode 32, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov reminisces about the August 1991 events in Russia and reflects on what went wrong across post-Soviet states after the collapse of the empire. RFE/RL's Armenian, Ukrainian, and Uzbek broadcasters visit with host Pavel Butorin to discuss their countries’ efforts -- or lack thereof -- to break away from their Soviet past. More   20 Years After The Big Breakup, Does The 'Former Soviet Union' Still Exist? Two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, its successor states encompass squeaky clean Scandinavian-style democracies like Estonia, autocratic despotisms like Uzbekistan -- and everything in between. Is it even possible to speak of a coherent "post-Soviet space" anymore? More   Rewriting History: Karimov The Brave Uzbekistan, like other former Soviet republics, is preparing to mark 20 years of independence, and media in the country are focusing on the role President Islam Karimov played -- or allegedly played -- in securing Uzbekistan's freedom from the Soviet Union. More   Kazakh Labor Activists Jailed Two Kazakh activists have been jailed for five days for staging a protest demanding the release from jail of a labor lawyer who represented striking oil workers. More   Kyrgyz Press Warned Against Incitement Journalists in Kyrgyzstan's southern city of Osh have been warned against "igniting interethnic hatred" as they cover the run-up to October's presidential election. More   Striking Oil Workers' Leader Sentenced In Kazakhstan A leader of the striking oil workers in western Kazakhstan has been sentenced to a one-year suspended jail term. More   The Things The Tajik President Doesn't See (Or Hear) Some Tajiks are complaining that a coterie of sycophantic officials is ensuring that their president, Emomali Rahmon, has a distorted view of the country which has nothing to do with the desperate realities of life in a poverty-stricken nation. More   The Talented Mr. Berdymukhammedov Being president of Turkmenistan, a country of some 5 million people with huge natural gas reserves, one would think there is not much time for anything but the affairs of state. More   83 Want Into Kyrgyz Presidential Race More than 80 people have put themselves forward to take part in Kyrgyzstan's upcoming presidential election. More

RFE/RL Headlines 8/22/2011 8:30:22 PM A daily digest of the English-language news and analysis written by the staff of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL is looking for guest bloggers, preferably writing from and about our broadcast region. If you're interested, drop us a line at webteam@rferl.org.

 

Features After Qaddafi, Libya Faces State Of Uncertainty Libya is in a state of euphoria amid the collapse of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi's regime following months of bloody fighting with a NATO-backed opposition. But with its primary goal achieved, how united is that opposition and what are the prospects for an orderly transition to a representative government? More   Interview: U.S. Special Envoy Marc Grossman On India-Pakistan Relations And Afghanistan's Future Marc Grossman, the U.S. senior representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, recently sat down at the State Department in Washington with Voice of America's Lina Rozbih to discuss a wide range of regional issues, from the future of Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network to India-Pakistan relations and the recent instability in Afghanistan as the United States begins to draw down its troops. More   Pakistan's Tribal Area Reforms Too Little, Too Late The Pakistani government is touting recently announced reforms in the country's western tribal region as a major breakthrough. But many say the changes to allow political parties to operate in the tribal areas and to update the region's century-old judicial system are too little, too late. More   News Battle Rages For Tripoli As World Leaders Tell Qaddafi To Go After a six-month conflict, rebels fighting to end Muammar Qaddafi's rule are reported to control most of Tripoli after advancing quickly into the Libyan capital. More   From Our Bureaus Aide: Tymoshenko Fate 'Hangs On Support At Home And Abroad' A close aide to jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says her fate depends on the level of support she can garner from people at home and abroad. More   Moscow March Marks 1991 Coup About 200 demonstrators have marked the 20th anniversary of the end of a failed Soviet coup with a march in central Moscow. More   Fourth Arrest In Kyrgyz Tourist Death Police in northern Kyrgyzstan have arrested a fourth suspect in the robbing and fatal beating of a Kazakh tourist. More   Calls For Kyrgyz Ex-Minister's Detention Relatives of those who died during antigovernment protests in Kyrgyzstan last year are demanding former Defense Minister Baktybek Kalyev's return to detention. More   Two Kyrgyz Policemen Arrested In Connection With Beating Death Two policemen in southern Kyrgyzstan have been arrested in connection with the death of a Russian citizen who authorities say was beaten in custody. More   Tajik Demand For Extra Hajj Dollars The Tajik authorities have announced that the price of the hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this year has risen to $3,348, payable in dollars only. More   U.S. Providing Iraq With Phone, SMS Monitoring Devices A U.S. military official says Washington will provide Iraqi authorities with technology to monitor and record phone calls and phone-text messages with the aim of preventing terrorist attacks, RFE/RL's Radio Free Iraq reports (RFI). More   Commentary Bosnia: How to Wriggle Out of the Palestinian Statehood Vote In the space of just one week, both Israeli and Palestinian officials have descended on Bosnia -Herzegovina in an attempt to influence officials in Sarajevo ahead of a September vote on Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. Both are counting on Bosnia's vote, and both have an equally strong chance of getting it. More