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OSH, Kyrgyzstan (TCA) — In the southwest of Kyrgyzstan, with its important Uzbek minority and arguable borders there is a potential cause for confrontation with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. At stake are precious irrigation water and mineral resources. Continue reading
BISHKEK (TCA) — There is something about economic forecasts proclaimed by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank: in cases they are mildly positive, realities that follow them tend to be better, and in cases they are mildly negative, realities turn out to be worse. Forecasts and subsequent realities concerning Central Asia in this context appear not just unexceptional, but even exemplary. Continue reading
LONDON (TCA) — The dream of operating a railways system from China to Europe via Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan seems to have taken a detour since the present situation shows that with the exception of Kazakhstan, the other Central-Asian post-Soviet republics find themselves on the losing end of China’s rail expansion scheme – due to various “realities”. Continue reading
ALMATY (TCA) — Today in Central Asia several banks bearing fancy names and based in fancy offices have multiplied in places like minor-size former Soviet republics with no economic achievement to speak of — all over among local banks from Dushanbe to Baku in the former USSR’s “soft belly” stretching from the Pamir to the Caucasus. In this regard, only Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have kept aloof from cash trouble up till now. Continue reading
ALMATY (TCA) — With income on oil sales down to a fraction of what they used to be until just two years ago, Kazakhstan seems desperate to fill the gap with increased income on other commodities it has in great quantities. This seems to be leading to a fresh wave of “resource nationalism” as the tendency to re-nationalise upstream assets is dubbed by western industrialists. In Kazakhstan, it was oil, in Kyrgyzstan gold – and now uranium is waiting for its turn. True: “commitments” have not been kept – but by whom? Continue reading
LONDON (TCA) — Bomb attack wreckage in Europe, the plight of Syrian war refugees, the fight against Daesh on the ground and Turkey’s ambivalent role in it and Central Asia’s brewing hotbeds – where do they all come together? The question looks obvious, but it seems amidst the political whirlwinds that everybody somehow involved has a different answer to it – often a contradictory and seldom a convincing one. Continue reading
