On June 29 Mongolia held its fifth round of parliamentary elections for the Ulsyn Ikh Khural (State Great Hural, or Parliament) since the country abandoned Communism in 1990 and held its first multiparty elections. Opposition parties cried foul; two days later the country’s capital erupted... MORE

Three people were killed and 13 wounded in the bombing of Baku’s Abu Bakr mosque during evening prayer on August 17. Witnesses claimed that a young man threw a grenade into the mosque where up to 200 people were praying. The assailant was able to... MORE

As leaders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, and Russia, gathered in Dushanbe on August 29, the least thing that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev could count on was unanimous support for his recognition of the independence of the breakaway Georgian... MORE

Since the death of Turkmenistan’s “president for life” Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov on December 21, 2006, energy companies from both East and West have been falling over themselves to get a piece of the action by signing agreements with his successor, Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, to develop Turkmenistan’s... MORE

Following the Tulip Revolution on March 24, 2005, and amid continuous political instability in the country, Kyrgyz political leaders habitually accuse local non-government organizations for their dependence on foreign financing. Some politicians see local civil society groups cooperating with foreign donors as an encroachment on... MORE

Although Kyrgyzstan has yet to declare its official response to the conflict in South Ossetia, Kyrgyz pundits have quickly used the developments in Georgia in their revision of real and imagined implications of the U.S. military base at the Manas Airport. The Kyrgyz government and... MORE

As Tashkent and Washington move to repair relations that were downgraded after divergent interpretations of the tragic events in Andijan on May 12, 2005, the U.S. is seeking to reengage Uzbekistan’s support for continuing cooperation of military operations in Afghanistan, for which Tashkent assented within... MORE

Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) was ushered onto the global stage by two tumultuous events: firstly, the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and secondly, the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001. The massive influx of over... MORE

In an unprecedented move, on July 1 Kazakh law enforcement authorities suspended the operation of the independent www.posit.kz website for three months. Confirming the harsh measure, Kazakh Deputy Prosecutor General Askhat Daulbayev said that the legal action had been taken after the website operators published... MORE