By Erkin Akhmadov (2/17/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Umida Ahmedova is a documentary photographer and Uzbekistan’s first camerawoman. In the end of 2009, she was charged with insult and defamation of the Uzbek nation on the basis of some of her works. Ahmedova went through a trial, where she was found guilty on all charges.

By Maka Gurgenidze (2/17/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili voiced the proposal for Georgia is to become a logistical hub for NATO's Afghanistan mission in a phone interview with the Associated Press on January 29th.

This represents a second attempt on Saakashvili's part to create a corridor via Georgia and Central Asia to Afghanistan for Western military shipments by opening the country's Black Sea ports and airports to NATO warplanes and naval vessels. The Georgian plan expects NATO ships to cross the Black Sea to its ports, loading their cargo onto trains bound for Azerbaijan, and from there shipped across the Caspian Sea and driven across Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in freight trucks.

By Suhrob Majidov (2/17/2010 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On February 3, Tajikistan’s Prime Minister Akil Akilov received a letter from his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoev, who requested the Tajik Government to reconsider its construction of the Roghun hydropower station. The Government of Uzbekistan insists that an international and independent assessment of the Roghun construction project should be conducted, and is concerned that the Roghun project may entail disastrous consequences for the entire region.

It should be recalled that the Roghun hydropower station is an incomplete Soviet era construction project on Tajik territory.