Armenia's Court of Appeals on March 9 upheld a seven-year jail sentence for opposition journalist Nikol Pashinian. But the court ruling added that Pashinian, a protégé of opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, would be eligible for release in three years under terms of an amnesty program, the RIA Novosti agency reported.
Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, will visit Uzbekistan later this month, according to Kazakhstani diplomats.
The upcoming visit was raised by Kazakhstan's new ambassador to Uzbekistan, Boribay Jeksembin, as he presented his credentials to President Islam Karimov on March 4.
A Georgian woman who was allegedly raped during the 2008 Russia-Georgia war has filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Justice against both the Russian and Georgian governments.
China wants to build a high-speed railway across Central Asia, a leading Chinese rail expert says.
Wang Mengshu told the South China Morning Post that Beijing plans to link the Western Chinese city of Urumqi with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The railway could later be extended to Europe.
"China's overseas high-speed rail projects serve two purposes.
RWE, the German energy concern, is "conducting intensive discussions with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan over gas supply contracts, with concrete progress on these negotiations anticipated in the first half of this year," the company said in a press release on March 5.
"Discussions between the Nabucco partners and financial institutions are also well underway, as are preparation
The anti-terror training center that the United States is proposing to build in Kyrgyzstan's southern Batken Province would cost $5.5 million, not $500,000 as a US Embassy representative in Bishkek initially stated.
Former Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze, a leader of Georgia's 2004 Rose Revolution, held talks in Moscow with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, an avowed enemy of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government.
The Turkish parliament has ratified a 2008 agreement with European Union states on the construction of the Nabucco gas pipeline, a strategic project designed to help Europe diversify its energy needs and unclench Moscow's grip on Caspian Sea energy exports.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has invited his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, to visit Moscow.
According to the semi-official Turkmenistan.ru news service, the heads of state had a "regular" telephone conversation on March 4, during which they discussed "issues of bilateral cooperation and interaction in international affairs."
