Worldwide, 222 million women want to delay or avoid pregnancy but have no access to modern contraceptives. If they did, this would help prevent 21 million unwanted pregnancies; 79,000 maternal deaths and 1.1 million infant deaths.
A leading Russian newspaper is reporting that the Pentagon is in talks with three Central Asian states – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – concerning the transfer of military equipment currently being used by American forces in Afghanistan.
The United States is facing some interesting diplomatic choices in South Asia. Washington is no doubt cheered by Turkmenistan’s recent commitment to ship natural gas via Afghanistan to India and Pakistan.
NATO leaders missed an opportunity during their recent summit in Chicago. In addition to trying to garner international support for an Afghanistan drawdown and stabilization strategy, they also should have considered the overlooked toll that the Afghan campaign has taken on the adjacent Central Asian states.
Vladimir Putin’s first full day back on the job as Russian president was a time for paying tribute to the Soviet past. Russia and other formerly Soviet states mark Victory Day on May 9.
In the post-Soviet age, Russia has relied on military muscle and energy dominance to help it achieve its foreign policy goals. Soft power, meanwhile, is something that has always been missing from Moscow’s diplomatic arsenal. But Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin’s resident macho man, now seems intent on putting a kinder, gentler face on Russia.
Now that Vladimir Putin has dispensed with the formalities of reclaiming presidential authority, Kremlinologists can focus on the more substantive question of how Russia’s paramount leader intends to define his third term. In particular, many are wondering how he will proceed with his pet project -- the creation of a Eurasian Union.
With the United States and its allies preparing for the 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, a top British defense official who recently visited the region believes that British forces are close to securing overland transit routes via Central Asian states to extract military equipment.
The volume of narcotics flowing out of Afghanistan to Central Asia and Russia appears to have decreased slightly over the past year. But the stockpile of opiates that traffickers already have on hand is sufficient to supply users in Central Asia and Russia for 15 years, according to a leading drug-control expert in Kyrgyzstan.
Russia has reportedly blocked a U.S. plan designed to help stem the flow of drugs from Afghanistan through Central Asia in a sign of Moscow's continued wariness about Washington's intentions in a region often thought of as "Russia's backyard."
