Kyrgyzstan

Lawmakers in Kyrgyzstan are again trying to force Toronto-based Centerra Gold, the country’s largest foreign investor, to renegotiate the terms of a mining deal that generates up to 12 percent of GDP. Any new operating contract would be the third for the country’s flagship Kumtor Gold Mine in less than a decade.

A border confrontation between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan is creating hardship for citizens of both countries in remote villages along the undelimited frontier, and, in at least one case, is stoking a food shortage.

Like most residents of her children’s home in Osh, Nargiza is a part-time orphan. Her father disappeared when she was born and her mother works long spells in Russia. Nargiza has no siblings and doesn’t know her grandparents. But she does see her mother from time to time.

Perceptions of corruption penetrate just about every aspect of life in Kyrgyzstan, including the spiritual side. For years, the Hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca required of every able Muslim – has been beset by allegations of graft involving those responsible for distributing the limited number of places.

All of the Kyrgyz citizens being held hostage after a border clash in Uzbekistan's Sokh exclave have been released.

The Kyrgyz Border Guard Service's chief of staff, Iskender Mambetaliev, told journalists on January 7 that the release came as a result of negotiations between the Uzbek authorities and local citizens of Uzbekistan's Sokh district.

OSH, Kyrgyzstan -- The Kyrgyz city of Osh in the Ferghana Valley is known as the "capital of the South." But it also bears another name that gives no reason for pride: Osh is also called the region's "drug capital."

The city is located on one of the major drug-trafficking routes from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe.

China is increasingly active in Central Asia, building pipelines and infrastructure projects, as well as expanding its diplomatic and cultural presence in the region.

It is becoming a pattern: As temperatures plunge in Kyrgyzstan, the gas gets cut, the electricity system overloads and burns out, and people shiver. Once central Bishkek, the capital, was immune to such suffering. No longer.