Kyrgyzstan News

The last delegation of Kyrgyz sportsmen arrived from China
Times of Central Asia (subscription), Kyrgyzstan - 2 minutes ago
BISHKEK, August 28 (Kabar). Celebration in honour of sportsmen, who took part in Beijing Olympic Games will be held in Bishkek in Kojomkul Sports Palace on ...

Times Online
Kyrgyz Embassy in Russia pay tribute to plane crash casualties
24, Kyrgyzstan - 1 hour ago
Kyrgyz Embassy in Russia pays tribute to the Boeing 737 crash casualties, press service of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal Affairs reported. ...
Video: 68 Die When Flight Headed to Iran Crashes AssociatedPress
Iran helps to identify Kyrgyz jet crash victims The Associated Press
Kyrgyzstan mourns as cause of air crash probed International Herald Tribune
MehrNews.com - Times of Central Asia (subscription)
all 1,785 news articles

Private Kyrgyz TV to Shift Focus From Politics to Economy
RedOrbit, TX - 5 hours ago
Bishkek, 27 August: One of the famous Kyrgyz TV channels has decided to change its work and completely stop covering political issues, the programme ...

Russia has officially recognized the independence of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Why would they do this? President Medvedev explains:

Meanwhile, ignoring Russia’s warnings, western countries rushed to recognise Kosovo’s illegal declaration of independence from Serbia. We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that, to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others…

Only a madman could have taken such a gamble. Did he believe Russia would stand idly by as he launched an all-out assault on the sleeping city of Tskhinvali, murdering hundreds of peaceful civilians, most of them Russian citizens? Did he believe Russia would stand by as his “peacekeeping” troops fired on Russian comrades with whom they were supposed to be preventing trouble in South Ossetia?

Russia had no option but to crush the attack to save lives. This was not a war of our choice. We have no designs on Georgian territory. Our troops entered Georgia to destroy bases from which the attack was launched and then left. We restored the peace but could not calm the fears and aspirations of the South Ossetian and Abkhazian peoples – not when Mr Saakashvili continued (with the complicity and encouragement of the US and some other Nato members) to talk of rearming his forces and reclaiming “Georgian territory”. The presidents of the two republics appealed to Russia to recognise their independence.

It’s all very pretty and rather deceptive. Medvedev can’t bring himself to mention the years of Russian-fueled or even Russian-committed provocations and cease-fire violations in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, nor does he bother to mention that the reason he was rushing to defend Russian Citizens was because his government had issued, carte-blanche, Russian passports to whichever South Ossetians could get them.

Very clever. And indeed it was—Western countries are still scrambling to respond to Moscow’s very well executed gambit in Georgia. Russia successfully used the only reliable current in Georgian politics: hatred of Russia. And Saakashvili was their willing accomplice. Richard Holbrooke, just back from his public dinner with President Saakashvili, finds that man as Georgia’s only hope:

The equation is simple: If Saakashvili survives, Vladimir Putin loses.

The intense personal hatred between these men overlays two centuries of tortured history between Russia and Georgia. Many people report that Putin simply “loses it” when discussing the upstart Saakashvili, who led his country from near bankruptcy into a golden age of economic growth and the world’s highest rate of foreign direct investment relative to GDP. All this has been halted by Russian tanks.

The Kremlin has probably lost its chance to remove Saakashvili by overt force, although sinister, stealthier means cannot be ruled out. Having just dined with him in a public restaurant, I wish his security was a little tighter. (His predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, was a near-miss target for several assassination attempts that are widely believed to have been Russian-directed.) The Kremlin’s best hope now is that Georgia’s economy will crumble, its currency will collapse, and an unhappy populace, encouraged by some opposition leader (perhaps bankrolled by Russia), will force Saakashvili from power.

The problem with this is that Saakashvili has proven himself reckless, easily-baited, and strategically a poor choice for leading Georgia. He is too inflammatory, too willing to berate Europe for not subsidizing his ambitions, too wiling to take catastrophic action with the assumed backing of the U.S. Holbrooke acknowledges this, though he doesn’t see that these are all reasons to reconsider our warm support. Frankly, I still don’t see how Saakashvili can finish his tenure as President, though I could easily be proven wrong.

But all this talk of a “new cold war” is just over-hyped nonsense. Russia is doing nothing it didn’t do in the early 90s. In a very real sense, things are not that much different than they were then—the post-Soviet military machine can barely operate (it was only able to get into Georgia so quickly because of pre-positioned assets along the border), the Russian economy is utterly dependent on the West for goods, services, and banks, and let us not forget: the President of Russia himself is taking to the pages of a major International western newspaper to justify his actions.

That normally doesn’t happen. We are not returning to 1968 all over again. We are still trying to figure out what happens after 1991.

Kyrgyz court dismisses case against Centerra project
Creamer Media's Mining Weekly, South Africa - 10 hours ago
An interdistrict court in the Kyrgyz Republic has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the country's vice-speaker of Parliament against agreements between the ...

Carlotta Gall has a must-read dispatch on June’s massive prison break in Kandahar, and how it is effecting attitudes toward the government:

A rising chorus of complaints equally scathing about the failings of the government can be heard around the country. The collapsing confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai is so serious that if the Taliban had wanted to, they could have seized control of the city of Kandahar on the night of the prison break, one Western diplomat in Kabul said.

The only reason they did not was they did not expect the government and the NATO reaction to be so weak, he said.

In fact, interviews with local officials and other people here who witnessed the bold prison break and its aftermath show that the level of government organization and security was woefully inadequate around what was clearly a high-priority target for the Taliban.

Read the whole thing. Equally Riveting is Alex Strick van Linschoten’s diary of how life in Kandahar City has changed:

I’ve been woken up each morning at around 5am for the last two days by a constant stream of helicopters and jets passing over my house here in Kandahar City. A big battle is being fought in Dand district, just over 10 kilometres away from the city. The Taliban are able to operate within the city, as shown by the world’s largest prison break a month or so ago, but the main fighting goes on in the districts.

In fact I’m amazed how bad things have become so quickly since I was last here in February. It’s probably a combination of the prison break and the summer season, when fighting usually picks up. At least 1000 criminals and Taliban fighters on the run doesn’t help, either…

Of course the talk of the town these days is the arrival of our new governor yesterday morning. Security was stepped up all over town, with even American forces manning checkpoints in some areas. There’s no great dissapointment over the long-overdue departure of Asadullah Khaled, who sewed tribal division and oversaw the transition of Kandahar to the state it’s in today.

Elders and district government authorities will be visiting the new governor, Raofi, over the coming days. Let’s see how he plans to deal with the situation.

He has lots of videos, too, that are worth viewing. Since strong local leadership is one of those crucial first steps in halting an insurgency, here’s hoping Kandahar has a chance at a decent future now.

Lukashenka to pay official visit to Kyrgyzstan in October
Белорусские новости, Belarus - 12 hours ago
Alyaksandr Lukashenka is scheduled to make an official visit to Kyrgyzstan in October, Kyrgyz Ambassador Lidiya Imanaliyeva told reporters in Minsk on ...

Now a UN investigation has made a finding about the bombing incident in Shindand, Herat:

Kai Eide, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, said local officials and residents in the western province of Herat corroborated reports that 60 children and 30 adults had been killed in an Aug. 21 military operation led by U.S. Special Operations forces and the Afghan army.

In a statement, Eide called the incident a “matter of grave concern to the United Nations” and said he had “repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations.”

U.S. forces in Afghanistan have increased their reliance on air power since last year, causing a corresponding increase in civilian deaths. The Herat assault appears to have caused the largest civilian loss of life attributed to U.S. forces since the war began in late 2001.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said military commanders in Afghanistan continued to believe that the attack in Herat “was a legitimate strike on a Taliban target.”

Whitman promised a detailed investigation. “This has a lot of people’s interest, and my sense is they want to be thorough and complete. We’re doing it as expeditiously as we can.”

I’m honestly curious how it is that news agencies and IGOs can send in local investigators within a couple of days, while, despite nearly a week of complaints of 60 children killed in the strike the U.S. military has yet to even organize an investigation (it used to claim it had, see below).

Meanwhile, despite linking to the multiple news stories about this possible atrocity today way down in six-word “news notes,” Small Wars Journal has yet to retract its August 24 news post, which notes at length the U.S. military’s claim to have killed 30 militants, as well as First Lieutenant Nathan Perry’s assertion that troops had searched the bombed compound to confirm the casualties.

So if 1LT Perry was saying August 24 that they had confirmed 30 dead militants, yet Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman is “promising a detailed investigation” about the incident, what is really going on here? Considering SWJ’s lengthy quotation of sources on August 24 detailing the military’s denials about civilian casualties, they owe their readers the courtesy of noting that now every other agency on the ground in Herat believes that 90 civilians died, and 60 of those were children. If the SWJ editors see anything factually wrong with the several days now of reporting coming out about that incident, they haven’t said so.

Which makes me wonder: what is so dangerous about admitting you’re wrong?

Previously:
A Problem More Serious Than Bias
Protesting Civilians’ Possible Death

MehrNews.com
Photographer Rasulof dies in Kyrgyz plane crash
MehrNews.com, Iran - 1 hour ago
27 (MNA) -- Young Iranian photographer Mohsen Rasulof died in a recent plane crash in Kyrgyzstan. The passenger jet carrying 90 people, crashed Sunday ...

Belarusian-Kyrgyz joint venture to produce around 500 tractors ...
National Legal Internet Portal, Belarus - 15 hours ago
Around 500 tractors will be produced annually at the Belarusian-Kyrgyz joint venture in Kyrgyzstan, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of ...

ISTANBUL, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Turk Telekom TTKOM.IS has bid in a tender to buy up to 78 percent of Kyrgyzstan fixed-line phone monopoly Kyrgyztelecom, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange on Wednesday. The Turkish operator said it ...

Turk Telekom says bids in Kyrgyztelecom tender
Reuters - 16 hours ago
The Turkish operator said it would also obtain a mobile licence through fixed-line operator Kyrgyz Telecom if it won the fixed-line tender. ...

Court Has Dismissed Lawsuit Against Kumtor Project
Resource Investor, VA - 4 minutes ago
By Canadian Press Centerra Gold Inc. which has been struggling to resolve uncertainty over its Kumtor mine, says a Kyrgyz court has dismissed a lawsuit ...

ISTANBUL, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Turk Telekom TTKOM.IS has bid in a tender to buy up to 78 percent of Kyrgyzstan fixed-line phone monopoly Kyrgyztelecom, the company said in a statement to the stock exchange on Wednesday. The Turkish operator said it ...

Bishkek gearing up for Belarus President official visit
Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan - 14 hours ago
The Kyrgyz authorities are getting ready for the official visit of President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, Lidia Imanalieva, Ambassador Extraordinary and ...

Ambassadors of six states present credentials to Kyrgyz president
Times of Central Asia (subscription), Kyrgyzstan - 6 hours ago
President congratulated the diplomats on official beginning of their mission in Kyrgyzstan. “We pin great hopes on widening and strengthening economic ...

24
Anti-Western, especially anti-American mood increases in Central Asia
24, Kyrgyzstan - 5 hours ago
"Another reason of high importance is that nobody has been researching opinion of students - Kyrgyz decision-makers of tomorrow, about geopolitics and West. ...

New head of Kyrgyz Drug Trafficking Control Agency appointed
24, Kyrgyzstan - 21 hours ago
A decree appointing a new head of Kyrgyz Agency on Drug Trafficking Control was signed by the Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev today. ...

BISHKEK, August 27 (24.kg). Ambassadors of the six states Bangladesh, Australia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Kazakhstan and the European Union presented credentials to the President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev, the presidential press service ...

BISHKEK, August 27 (24.kg). A decree appointing a new head of Kyrgyz Agency on Drug Trafficking Control was signed by the Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev today. The police colonel Melis Turganbaev, ex-first vise Minister of Internal Affairs was ...