A Chinese energy company is considering a $300 million investment in Kyrgyzstan's northern Chui Province -- an amount rivaling the $300 million soft loan Russia offered to the cash-strapped Central Asian nation in 2009.
Uzbek and Russian security forces are working jointly to combat terrorism, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov says.
Speaking in Tashkent at the opening session of the Russian-Uzbek intergovernmental commission, Ivanov said Uzbekistan and Russia have a mutual understanding of terrorism.
Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov is in Pakistan on a mission to boost trade between the two nations.
Norov has already met Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad. He is scheduled to meet Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on April 1.
In comments that have potentially ominous implications for security in the South Caucasus, a top Kremlin official has hinted that the recent suicide bombings in Moscow may have a Georgian connection.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is assuming a 25 stake in Sungas LLC, a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) distributor in Afghanistan.
The $8 million investment in the US-registered company will help it expand a nationwide storage and distribution network, the ADB said in a statement on March 29.
Turkmenistan's president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, has issued a warning to Prosecutor General Chary Hojamuradov: either strengthen staff discipline in a "short period of time," or face dismissal.
An agreement between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to exchange prisoners will come into force in April.
The agreement was signed in February, 2009, and later ratified by the states' respective parliaments. Ratification certificates were finally exchanged on March 19, paving the way for the agreement to come into force within 30 days time, local media outlets have reported.
