Author: Leila Zhaparov

The cybersecurity agencies of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand) issued a warning on Tuesday that hackers were increasingly exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities to access their targets’ networks. It marks a significant departure from similar advisories issued in 2022 and 2021, when the agencies warned that malicious cyber actors were exploiting older software vulnerabilities more frequently than recently disclosed ones. In a co-authored advisory, the agencies list the top 15 most routinely exploited vulnerabilities of 2023, with CVE-2023-3519 — an issue affecting Citrix’s networking product NetScalers — being the most widely used. Reports around the time…

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has supported Kazakhstan’s first healthcare sector public-private partnership (PPP) project, and provided finance for a tram fleet renewal program in the Kazakh city of Pavlodar. The EBRD arranged a €365 million financing package provided by six financial institutions to construct and operate a 630-bed multidisciplinary hospital in Kokshetau, northern Kazakhstan. The financing, including the EBRD’s €105 million loan, will be provided to a Kazakhstan-based subsidiary of Rönesans Holding of Turkey.The project will be co-financed through parallel loans totaling up to €260 million provided by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the German investment corporation…

On October 30, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Kazakhstan, together with the Urban Center of Almaty Management University, presented the results of their joint efforts within the Green and Safe Streets Initiative, which aims to address air pollution in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty. This initiative is part of the regional City Experiment Fund program funded by the Ministry of Finance of Slovakia. The Green and Safe Streets Initiative included three interrelated clusters of activities: a social impact campaign, tactical urban actions on Berezovsky, Turgut Ozal, and Kazybek bi streets in Almaty, and the installation of air pollution measuring devices, which…

In a bid to attract more tipsters, the CIA published a set of online instructions on how to reach out to Langley in Korean, Mandarin and Farsi on Wednesday. Top US spy agency wants to make it easier for people in Iran, China and North Korea to reach out with tips in a bid to add to its portfolio of domestic informants. The CIA published a set of online instructions in Korean, Mandarin and Farsi on Wednesday detailing steps that potential tipsters can take to contact US intelligence officials without putting themselves in danger. The instructions include ways to reach…

The terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall in March 2024, which left 140 people dead, has sparked a crackdown on central Asian workers living in Russia, and put the relationship between the region and Russia under increasing strain. The four suspected gunmen under arrest are all citizens of Tajikistan, a central Asian nation that was once part of the Soviet Union. Following the Crocus City attack, Russian police started rounding up and deporting workers who are originally from Tajikistan, as well as from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The attack, which Russia has blamed on Ukraine, also sparked massive police raids, document checks of migrants…

Russia has reportedly lost a staggering amount of troops over the past 24 hours along with dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles as bloody fighting takes its toll on Vladimir Putin’s men. Russia lost a staggering 1,740 troops in a single day, the highest tally of casualties for Moscow since the start of the invasion in 2022, according to Ukraine. In the previous 24 hours, Ukraine also claimed Russia had lost 30 tanks and 42 armoured vehicles. Death toll and military hardware statistics are difficult to assess with both sides giving different or little information. However, Ukraine’s armed forces have claimed Russia has so far lost an eye-watering…

Rustam Emomali is increasingly the face of his country on the international stage On January 29, China signed off on an agreement to hand Tajikistan the gift of $2 million to fund the construction of a conference room in a government building. As grants go, it is not a lot, but the real significance of the development lies elsewhere. As an official press release asserts, that the money was disbursed at all was the result of a visit paid to Beijing by the 36-year-old chair of the Senate, Rustam Emomali, better known to the public for being the son of President Emomali Rahmon. Common…

Frankfurt (18/12 – 14) That there are remarkable advantages in being ignored is not generally recognized. Central Asian countries, historically under the thumb of Moscow, all through the 70+ years of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, were more or less cut off from the outside world. There was little trade or other exchange. The USSR was in fact a grab-bag of ethnicities, religions and languages, controlled with an iron fist by Stalin and afterwards with unbroken dominance through subsequent regimes. Under Soviet management, Central Asia had stayed poor and ignored; it had not developed any hydrocarbon resources to lure…

A year after his illegal expulsion to Russia, the investigative journalist is living under the threat of attacks from the Kyrgyz authorities who, in addition to stripping him of his nationality, have had the accounts feeding his channel blocked. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on President Sadyr Japarov to put an end to this pressure and restore his Kyrgyz nationality One year after being deported to Russia in flagrant violation of deportation procedures on 23 November 2022, investigative reporter Bolot Temirov continues to be threatened and harassed by the Kyrgyz authorities and is now living in a secret location somewhere in Europe, where he…

Toronto, Atlanta (28/11 – 20) A wise old expression intones “Behind every bad borrower is a bad lender”. Like many such cute, amusing aphorisms, it is accurate as far as it goes … but what if? What if a loan approval is held up, then granted, after a couple of phone calls from the office of the Vice President? What if the borrower is a crony or relative of Mr. Big, which is what practically bankrupted Indonesia, when the Soeharto vampire children took out multi-hundred-million-dollar “loans” (wink wink) for projects whose profit-making potential was near zero? What is the potential…