Author: Keith Delbert Turner

According to government data, of the eight basic socially significant food products in Kyrgyzstan, domestic production meets the demand only for potatoes, vegetables, fruits, and milk. The demand for bread and bakery products, meat, sugar, eggs, and vegetable (cooking) oil is partly satisfied with imports. This was announced at the Council on Food Security and Nutrition meeting on October 3. From January to July 2024, the levels of self-sufficiency were 86.5% for bread and bakery products, 162.8% for potatoes, 159% for vegetables and fruits, 79.1% for meat, 116.3% for milk, 49.2% for sugar, 71.4% for eggs, and 48.5% for vegetable…

The head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency warned the country’s leading research universities on Thursday that foreign states are targeting their institutions and imperiling national security. “We know that our universities are being actively targeted by hostile actors and need to guard against the threat posed to frontier research in the most sensitive sectors,” said the deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, who also attended the briefing. The threat requires “further measures,” said the deputy PM, who announced that the government was launching a consultation with the sector so it could “do more to support our universities and put the right…

Brussels (12/03 – 55.56) Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said that the dissolution of human rights NGOs signals a deteriorating environment for civil society and human rights defence in Tajikistan. She reiterated that Tajikistan must reconsider its attitudes towards civil society and view human rights defenders as allies instead of enemies. Earlier in November 2023, Tajikistan Minister of Justice announced that 700 NGOs in the country had been liquidated over an 18-month period. “Human rights defenders working on so-called sensitive issues, including freedom from torture, the right to housing and compensation for requisitioned land, minority rights, freedom of belief and good governance, political rights, and…

The Soviet Union’s collapse 32 years ago led to rapid change, economic collapse, and violence. In Tajikistan, that violence slid rapidly into civil war. Reflecting on the Soviet Union’s collapse 32 years ago and attempting to draw any sort of conclusion is often a matter of perspective. In his new book, “Moscow’s Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR,” Dr. Isaac McKean Scarborough, an assistant professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Leiden University, writes of the collapse from one of the Soviet Union’s most distant peripheries — Dushanbe. In doing so, he highlights a perspective not often taken…

Turkic republics, Turkic world, should play an important role in Türkiye’s foreign policy, says Ruslan Kazakbayev Türkiye has achieved “great successes and victories” in its 100-year history and is “one of the leading countries” in the international arena, according to Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to Ankara. “During this 100-year period, brother Türkiye has faced very big tests. But Türkiye has achieved great victories in those tests and has now emerged as a bright leading country not only in the Middle East and the region but also in the world in technology, economy, geopolitics, politics, and culture,” Ruslan Kazakbayev told Anadolu at the…

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on more than 150 individuals and entities supplying Russia’s military-industrial base. The list includes Kyrgyzstan- and Tajikistan-based entities. Kyrgyz Republic-based Weitmann Handeln Allianz LLC (Weitmann) is a provider of turnkey supply, logistics, and customs clearances services to foreign clients. Weitmann sent hundreds of shipments to Russia consisting of automatic data processing machines and disk storage devices, according to the Treasury. Weitmann was designated for operating or having operated in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy.According to the Ministry of Justice of Kyrgyzstan, Weitmann Handeln Allianz…

Much like its ideological counterparts at HispanTV (Iranian-owned) and Actualidad RT (Russian-owned), Telesur wraps its incitement into a sophisticated and slick twenty-four-hour news platform through its website, broadcasts, and social media presence. Though it is difficult to gauge its influence, numbers suggest that Telesur’s message is impactful. Telesur has two million followers on its Spanish X account, 117,500 on its English X account, and more than half a million on Instagram. Its YouTube account has over 1.7 million subscribers, with 100,000 new subscribers and almost 7.4 million video views since October 7 (It also posts its videos on the Daily Motion). The network traditionally pushes out conspiracy theories, fake news, “whataboutism,”…

As IRIB reported, Iran’s Agriculture Minister Mohammad-Ali Nikbakht, who is the Iranian chair of the joint committee, headed a high-ranking delegation to the country in order to meet with Kyrgyz officials and attend the meeting. Prior to the meeting, Nikbakht met and held talks with the Kyrgyz economy and agriculture ministers and discussed ways of expanding ties in various economic sectors. Speaking in his meeting with the Kyrgyz Agriculture Minister Askarbek Janybekov, Nikbakht said: “The value of trade between the two countries was $78 million last year and $33 million this year, which is not a significant figure considering the…

Berlin (24/10 – 67) UN Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Nazila Ghanea, visited Tajikistan from April 11 to April 21 to conduct research on issues in this field. The UN expert will assess religious freedom and its interaction with the right to freedom of expression, discuss gender equality, women’s rights, and children’s rights. She stated that the implementation of religious freedom and belief in the country is a cause for concern. Ghanea, the newly appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, called on Tajikistan to adapt and review its laws, policies, and practices regarding religion…

The Iranian president expressed Tehran’s readiness to share its scientific and technological achievements with Kyrgyzstan, which he hailed as a friendly state. Iran’s policy is based on the development of relations with friendly and brotherly countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a meeting with his Kyrgyz counterpart Sadyr Japarov, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday. “Unfortunately, despite the wishes of the governments of Iran and Kyrgyzstan, the economic and commercial relations between the two countries have not yet expanded proportionate to the existing capacities of the two countries,” Raisi…