Craig Murray censored for attacking Alisher Usmanov. Ex UK ambassador to Uzbeckistan; Crag Murray has had his blog dumped by fasthosts and the bloggers (302 so far) fight back. Euro MP Tom Wise repeats some of Murrays allegations which have been published on the European Parliament website. Lots of Shenanigans; The controversy; An extremely rich man was accused of being a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist Oh, and he also wants to buy Arsenal FC.
posted by adamvasco on Oct 1, 2007 - 14 comments

The Shanhai Cooperative Organization. ^[wiki] When Moscow and Beijing engineered the creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) six years ago, I am not sure if they foresaw its emergence as an important actor in the international order. Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia, currently observers, are lobbying hard to get accepted into this club. The US request for membership was rejected two years ago.
posted by delmoi on Aug 23, 2007 - 14 comments

Bush the Dissident. (WaPo) Background (and previously) here here here here and here.
posted by Avenger on Aug 19, 2007 - 45 comments

Canadian photographer Christopher Herwig provides a fascinating glimpse of the people and places of 5 of the "-stan" countries of Central Asia. You can see more work and current projects on his flickr page. Noteworthy photo essays: Arsan Baths in Almatry, Soviet Roadside Bus Stops (seen here before), and his recent The Wheelbarrow Operators of Monrovia.
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 11, 2007 - 16 comments

Russia's discomfort with its Muslim minority stems from a fear that the higher-than-average fertility of the Muslim population (6-10 children children per woman among Muslims vs 1.5 per woman among non-Muslims) will make the ethnic Russians of eastern-orthodox persuasion a minority within the state. [More Inside]
posted by gregb1007 on Jan 8, 2007 - 43 comments

A Disturbance in the Blogosphere: Publishing the UK/US/Uzbekistan Torture Memo. Braving arrest, bloggers have broken the UK’s law of silence with the truth about torture. Bloggers are mass publishing the leaked UK/US/Uzbekistan Torture Memos. The memos are from the correspondences of Craig Murray who was the United Kingdom's ambassador to Uzbekistan. These memos are evidence and a memorandum of record outlining the rendition and torture of US-arrested prisoners in Uzbekistan. From Craig Murray's Memo: 12. On the usefulness of the material obtained, this is irrelevant. Article 2 of the [UN] Convention, to which we are a party, could not be plainer: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." 13. Nonetheless, I repeat that this material is useless – we are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful.
posted by Dunvegan on Dec 29, 2005 - 246 comments

The Butcher of Andijan. Uzbekistan Interior Minister Zakirjon Almatov is currently on an extended visit to Germany. Nothing strange or particularly newsworthy about that, you might think - until you realise that Almatov has been declared persona non grata by the EU as one of 12 Uzbek officials "directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force" in the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters in the east Uzbekistan city of Andijan.
posted by ZenMasterThis on Nov 28, 2005 - 8 comments

The Baburnama Although Andijan has lately been in the news (NY Times, reg. required) as the site of riots against the US-backed government of Uzbekistan, its lasting claim to fame is that of the birthplace of Babur, the first Moghul Emperor.

Babur authored the Baburnama, often credited as the first Muslim autobiography and an endlessly entertaining read. The book's bloody-mindedness (Amazon's statistically improbably phrases include girth dagger, Uncle the Khan, and turn over the fortress) is leavened by a remarkably humane voice. A must.
posted by since1968 on May 19, 2005 - 8 comments

"The OSCE focuses only on establishment of democracy, the protection of human rights and the freedom of the press. I am now questioning these values." -Uzbek President Islam Karimov
Can we really wage an effective war on terrorism by aligning ourselves with villains? Does it strike anyone else as silly that we've justified our invasion of Iraq with the removal of Saddam while pairing with his Uzbek counterpart? Lack of political freedom and rampant poverty has tensions mounting in Uzbekistan(1 2 3 4).
posted by Tryptophan-5ht on Apr 1, 2004 - 19 comments