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You might not think that money from oil would be a problem for Azerbaijan, one of the former Soviet Union’s largest energy producers. But when oil production drops, and election-year demands for money increase, the picture changes.
The need for far-reaching changes in Georgia’s prisons, brought to life by recent graphic videos of rape and beatings, paved the way for Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s rise to power.
“One Fatherland, one Fate, one Leader of the Nation” – so says the slogan beside the smiling face of President Nursultan Nazarbayev on giant billboards looming over the streets in Kazakhstan. They are promoting a new holiday on December 1: First President’s Day, when Kazakhstan will fete its longtime leader.
Kyrgyzstan, the closest thing Central Asia has to a working democracy, just held municipal elections. The results are generating tension within the national governing coalition, fueling complaints that new voices are being stifled and causing some observers to raise the specter of a possible repeat of recent history.
Six years ago, Armenia pledged that thousands of children institutionalized in state-run orphanages for reasons of poverty would be returned to their biological families, or placed with foster families. But, today, little has changed for most of these children.
In mid-2010, when 20-year-old Sultan Temirzhan uulu left Kyrgyzstan to attend university in St. Petersburg, he was unprepared for the big city noise and the White Nights of summer. He was also unprepared for the discrimination.
They’ve battled police in the streets and they’ve challenged authority the courts. Now, faced with staggering increases in fines for unauthorized demonstrations, Azerbaijani opposition activists are turning to Facebook to get their messages out.
A surge of economic nationalism is making life uncomfortable for Chinese companies working in Kyrgyzstan. Faced with obstacles to trade and investment in the restive republic, Beijing is looking for ways to mitigate risk. Kyrgyzstan, Chinese officials know, is not the only place in Central Asia eager for business.
