TCA
DUSHANBE (TCA) — Tajik officials, with the apparent acquiescence of Turkish authorities, have forcibly and extra-judicially returned a political activist from Istanbul to Tajikistan, Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said on February 20. The activist, Namunjon Sharipov, faces a real risk of torture and other ill-treatment in Tajikistan.
TCA
BISHKEK (TCA) — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the United States and NATO have been trying to downplay the existence of Daesh (Islamic State) militants in Afghanistan, TOLOnews reported.
TCA
ASTANA (TCA) — An official presentation of the Astana International Financial Center, timed to the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the capital of Kazakhstan, is to be held in Astana on July 5, the AIFC Governor Kairat Kelimbetov said at the Kazakh Government meeting on February 20, the official website of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan reported.
TCA
ASTANA (TCA) — Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev has decreed changes in the Latin-based alphabet that is to replace Cyrillic in the Central Asian country, abolishing apostrophes that came under severe criticism from linguists, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.
BISHKEK (TCA) — The detention of a Kyrgyz parliament member in Kazakhstan on charges of involvement in contraband at the Kyrgyz-Kazakh border adds fuel to the Kazakh-Kyrgyz tensions over reported smuggling of Chinese goods into the Eurasian Economic Union through Kyrgyzstan. The incident has also highlighted the problem of corruption in Kyrgyzstan’s customs bodies. We are republishing this article on the issue by Chris Rickleton, originally published by Eurasianet:
TCA
TASHKENT (TCA) — The EU is continuing to offer significant support to border security activities in Central Asia. In particular, on February 21-23 Tashkent will host the National workshop on profiling of foreign terrorists fighters, conducted within the framework of the EU-funded Border Management in Central Asia Programme (BOMCA 9), the Delegation of the European Union to Uzbekistan said.
