Umed Saidov, a 23-year-old Tajik, flew to the United States in the spring of 2009 with a single goal: to improve his English.
That skill would translate into better opportunities for him and his family back home. For now, Saidov, who studied in the northwestern US city of Seattle for four months before relocating to New York City, is taking it one step at a time.
Close to the UN headquarters in Manhattan, visibly distressed young Iranian women wearing black headscarves are chanting in Persian with a like-minded crowd.
Some of the participants are carrying Iranian flags, others are holding homemade signs that read: "Where Is My Vote?" "Freedom And Democracy," "Khamenei, Stop Killing Iranians."
Close to the UN headquarters in Manhattan, visibly distressed young Iranian women wearing black headscarves are chanting in Persian with a like-minded crowd.
Some of the participants are carrying Iranian flags, others are holding homemade signs that read: "Where Is My Vote?" "Freedom And Democracy," "Khamenei, Stop Killing Iranians."
Cross-border water disputes, water losses caused by poor irrigation practices, the continuing decline of the Aral Sea -- the United Nations World Water Assessment Program's annual report has a lot of alarming information about Central Asia. The report also argues that states around the world must change the way they view water as a resource.
A civil court in Tashkent on February 7 rejected Freedom House's final appeal of a six-month suspension of its activities in Uzbekistan. It took the court only seven minutes to reach the verdict. The appeal was a final attempt by the US-based organization to reverse a decision by the Uzbek Justice Ministry, which ruled that Freedom House violated laws on nongovernment organizations.
While a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) notes a 21 percent decline of areas for poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, it also finds that favorable weather conditions led nevertheless to a robust harvest. Overall, the report says, Afghanistan's raw opium production shrank by more than 2 percent in 2005. But the outlook for 2006 is troubling.
The so-called Kazakhgate criminal case has been moving at a snail's pace through the U.S. federal court system in New York. The indictment alleges that U.S.
The World Drug Report, issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), claims that some 87 percent of opium sold in the global drug trade originates in Afghanistan.
It is a crime under U.S. law for individuals or companies to bribe officials in a foreign country in order to gain a business advantage. Kazakhstan was placed in the spotlight six years ago by the emergence of the "Kazakhgate" scandal alleging that a U.S. citizen funneled millions in oil-concession fees to Kazakh officials.
