In The News

Postcards from Planet Google

Jennifer S. Lee November 28, 2002
With 150 million queries a day coming to its search engine site from more than 100 countries and in 86 languages Google is the ultimate proof that global village has arrived. As the New York Times story notes "Despite its geographic and ethnic diversity, the world is spending much of its time thinking about the same things. Country to country, region to region, day to day and even minute to...

A Troubled Project Holds Warnings for Kazakhstan's Oil Sector

Mark Berniker November 19, 2002
Investments by multinational corporations can help bring skills, capital, and income to developing countries. But creating a mutually beneficial relationship isn't necessarily a smooth process, as this report from Central Asia explains: "ChevronTexaco has been Kazakhstan's primary oil and gas investor since 1993. Now, with disagreements halting a joint venture between the company...

Moscow Hostage Crisis Repercussions Felt Across Caucasus and Central Asia

October 31, 2002
The hostage crisis in Moscow has prompted neighboring countries to individually convene in security councils addressing the same issue of counterterrorism. Domestic decisions will have potential to determine the stability of cross national relations. While Azerbaijan has immediately closed its Chechen cultural center in an attempt to reduce tensions with Russia, for example, Georgia’s reluctance...

World Donors Praise Kabul’s Budget and Development Plans

Carlotta Gall October 14, 2002
With the majority of its institutions and infrastructure in ruins following first civil war and then the war on terror, Afghanistan is urgently seeking international aid that would allow the country to get back on the road towards self-sufficiency. President Karzai and his government estimate the country will need at least $10 billion over the next few years to develop a viable economy. Thus...

Kazakhstan: President Orders Study on Effects of Decriminalizing 'Soft' Drugs

Zamira Eshanova October 12, 2002
No longer simply transit areas for drugs from Afghanistan, Central Asian countries are now seeing increasing rates of drug use and addiction. In a radical move to deal with the problem, the president of Kazakhstan is considering whether the Dutch experience of legalizing 'soft' drugs like marijuana could help curb his country’s demand for harder, more devastating drugs like heroin....

China and Kyrgyzstan Launch Anti-terrorism Exercises

October 11, 2002
The global war on terror has brought new security developments like the dispatch of Japanese navy vessels to the Indian Ocean for the first time since WWII and Chinese soldiers engaging in the first ever live exercise outside their border with another nation. Kyrgyzstan and China have begun coordinated military exercises along their border in order to combat threats from international Islamic...

Central Asian Authorities Keep IMU Threat Alive

September 16, 2002
During the American campaign in Afghanistan there were reports that, along with Taliban and al Qaeda members, the military leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Juma Namangani, was killed. However, one Tajik official says that Namangani was actually regrouping and hoping to launch a strike into the Ferghana Valley. Other Central Asian political figures have also publicly worried...