A district court in Kyrgyzstan’s southern Batken Province seems to have had a hard time distinguishing Islam from Christianity. The court recently sentenced two Jehovah’s Witnesses to seven-year prison terms for the possession of banned radical Islamic media materials.
The Georgian government is facing pressure to open an investigation into the conduct of riot police during a May 26 protest in Tbilisi that left four people dead.
As Turkey’s June 12 parliamentary elections draw nearer, public attention is focusing on how a set of explicit videos involving politicians from Turkey’s third largest political party, the ultranationalist MHP, are influencing voting preferences.
In another grim sign for foreign investors in Kyrgyzstan, a parliamentary probe into operations at the Kumtor gold mine has some experts worried that officials are angling to nationalize one of the Central Asian country’s most valuable assets.
After more than three years of political strife, the Armenian government and the country’s main opposition coalition, the Armenian National Congress, appear ready to bury the hatchet.
As US-led forces gear up to downsize in Afghanistan, Moscow is increasingly worried about the possibility of militants, drugs and instability seeping into Central Asia. This growing concern is pushing the Kremlin to seek a more hands-on role in Central Asian border security.
A grandiose project is rising in a sleepy corner of Central Asia, where southeastern Kazakhstan meets northwestern China. Officials in Astana hope the multi-billion dollar initiative can transform a patch of desert into an engine of growth.
The unexpected May 29 death of Sergei Bagapsh, the de facto leader of the breakaway region of Abkhazia, is certain to shake up Abkhaz politics, but some Abkhaz observers say that the underlying question is whether or not it will lead to instability in the territory.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appears to see the construction of a canal near Istanbul that would link the Black and Marmara seas as a lynchpin of his political legacy. But political experts and economists are viewing the project with caution, worrying that it could have a destabilizing impact on existing energy and security arrangements.
