News Digest
TURKMENISTAN FINALLY SIGNS UP TO CASPIAN SEA ENVIRONMENTAL ACCORD
By empty (11/9/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Turkmenistan has added its signature to a landmark environmental accord signed in Tehran on November 5 by the four other Caspian Sea states, officials said. After requesting more time before inking the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Caspian Sea during what was supposed to be its formal signing last week, officials said Turkmen Environment Minister Matkarim Radzhapov returned to Tehran Saturday to sign up. The convention now becomes the first legally-binding treaty on any subject signed by the five Caspian Sea states -- Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.SKINHEADS SUSPECTED OF KIDNAPPING, MURDERING CAUCASIANS, CENTRAL ASIANS
By empty (11/7/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
A group of drunken skinheads allegedly broke into the home of an ethnic Azeri family in a small city in Moscow Oblast and kidnapped their 2-1/2-year-old child. The youths have been arrested and the baby was recovered unharmed. An Interior Ministry spokesman told ITAR-TASS that this was not the first time that extremist youths have attacked people from the Caucasus.INDIA TO HELP KYRGYZ MILITARY LEARN ENGLISH
By empty (11/6/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandez met with his Kyrgyz counterpart Colonel General Esen Topoev in Bishkek on 6 November to discuss Indian assistance to the Kyrgyz military, particularly in teaching the English language. English teaching is to be provided at a special language laboratory in the town of Tokmok near Bishkek and in several locations in India. The ministers also agreed that Indian specialists in mountain fighting would provide theoretical and practical training in Kyrgyzstan.KYRGYZ MEDIA COUNCIL APPEALS TO PRESIDENT ON CRIMINAL LIBEL ISSUE
By empty (11/6/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The recently created Media Council of Kyrgyzstan issued an appeal to President Akaev and the country\'s journalists on 6 November, focusing on the charge of criminal libel as one of the main hindrances to journalistic activity in Kyrgyzstan. The appeal stated that this conclusion is the result of a poll of journalists taken as the council\'s first action after its creation, and asked the president to try again to persuade the parliament to drop imprisonment as a punishment for libel and to introduce a fee for filing lawsuits against the media. Akaev has already tried twice to persuade the legislature to decriminalize libel.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.