Weekly news wrap

In Kazakhstan, the president's office and a leading opposition newspaper said on Monday they had failed to reach an out-of-court settlement over a slander lawsuit, according to AP. President Nursultan Nazarbayev's office sued the Assandi-Times last month after it accused his administration of being behind a bogus edition of its newspaper reporting that opposition leaders intended to resign. The president's office said the newspaper's allegation that it was involved in printing a fake edition had damaged its reputation. It asked a court to order the Assandi-Times to publish a retraction and pay 100 million tenge (US $730,000) in damages. The newspaper claimed the lawsuit was an attempt to silence it ahead of parliamentary elections slated for September. At the first court hearing on 25 June, the two sides agreed to seek an out-of-court settlement. But on Monday, both sides said they had failed to even begin negotiations on a settlement. The Russian-language Assandi-Times writes extensively about alleged government corruption and political and media rights. Its journalists have been beaten by unknown assailants in the past few years, and its office suffered an arson attack. Kazakhstan's new information minister pledged on Wednesday to eradicate official prosecution of independent news organisations ahead of the parliamentary elections. Altynbek Sarsenbayev, co-chairman of the opposition Ak Zhol party, said he would end "mass'' court actions against independent media and journalists by various state agencies - a practice often used to silence critical voices. He said he had already signed an order prohibiting the information ministry's local branches from filing any lawsuits against Kazakh news organisations. After his appointment on Monday, Sarsenbayev ordered the withdrawal of lawsuits filed earlier by his ministry against three independent newspapers, calling their prosecution "groundless". He also said on Wednesday he would resign his post if the September elections are deemed unfair. Two Tajik opposition parties announced on Monday that they had formed a coalition ahead of parliamentary elections in February 2005. The partnership is between the Social Democratic Party and the Development Party, which is not officially registered. The coalition will allow the Development Party to field its candidates at next year's polls. In the past four years, authorities have repeatedly turned down the Development Party's registration requests. Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov has maintained a tight grip on this impoverished former Soviet republic country since he came to power in 1994. Last year, he pushed through a referendum allowing him to stay till 2020, if re-elected. On Thursday, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov signed into law an election bill which opposition parties say fails to ensure free and fair elections. Last month, four opposition parties urged Rakhmonov to reject the bill and threatened to boycott upcoming polls if he didn't. The Islamic Renaissance, Democratic, Social and Social Democratic parties said the bill doesn't guarantee independent observers' access to polling stations and vote-counting, and restricts political parties' participation in local election committees. The US Embassy in Tajikistan expressed concern that the bill failed to ensure independence of election commissions, which are in charge of conducting polls and tabulating votes. It also said the US $450 fee the bill sets out for candidates to run was too high. Parliament's upper house passed the bill on 8 July. It was approved by the lower house last month. In Uzbekistan, the wife of an Arabic teacher who has been missing for more than two weeks said on Monday that Uzbek authorities detained him in a crackdown on dissident Muslims. Farrukh Haidarov, 32, teacher of Arabic at the Egyptian cultural centre in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, went missing on 25 June, said his wife, Zuhra Fahrutdinova. A student at the cultural centre was allegedly one of the suicide bombers involved in a string of attacks that killed 47 people in Tashkent and the central town of Bukhara earlier this year, and several students from the centre have been arrested. The Uzbekistan-based Independent Human Rights Initiative group said last week Haidarov might have been detained along with those students. Rights groups have accused Uzbek authorities of using the March-April attacks as an excuse to persecute Muslims who practice Islam outside state-controlled institutions. They also say thousands of alleged Islamic radicals have been jailed through unfair trials in recent years. Fahrutdinova said her husband had been summoned to a police station after the bombings and told to write a statement denying his involvement in the attacks. She said she thought the authorities had subsequently arrested him. A spokesman for the National Security Service, Alimjon Turakulov denied that Haidarov was being held by authorities. The authorities in Turkmenistan took the only Russian radio station broadcasting there off the air on Sunday. The Turkmen Communications Ministry said Mayak radio station's programmes were stopped because of a breakdown in broadcasting equipment. A spokesman said the problem would cost more than $100,000 to fix and take at least a year. A Mayak spokesman told the BBC it had been given no warning about a decision to take its programmes off air. Sergei Kurokhtin said the technical problems could be solved very easily and that the radio's management suspected there were other reasons for the sudden decision to take it off air. The British embassy in Ashgabad expressed concern that the limited number of media outlets in Turkmenistan would be further restricted. The Turkmen authorities exercise strict control over the media and correspondents say Mayak was one of the few outside sources of information available to ordinary people without satellite dishes. On Wednesday the Turkmen government circulated a press release to the mass media explaining the reasons for the temporary shutdown of transmissions of Radio Mayak and assured that efforts were being made to restore the services. The Swiss government has awarded a grant of US $3 million to Tajikistan. The money will be channelled into implementing a new water supply project in Soghd Region, a source at the Swiss Cooperation Office has told Asia-Plus. The Swiss government's contribution comprised 60 percent of the total cost of the project. The rest of the money will be allocated by the Norwegian government, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Tajik government. The water supply project in Khujand would include three components. The first is to draw up, finance and implement investment projects for improving the work of Khujandvodokanal (Khujand water and canal enterprise). The second is training for staff of this organisation aimed at developing and improving the regulating structure and functioning of the company. The third is to improve people's knowledge of water supply problems, water values and the fact that water resources are scarce. The project will kick off right after the signing of the document and will finish in 2007, the source said.