Weekly news wrap

Turkmenistan's top Muslim leader had been dismissed, state media reported on Wednesday. Chief Mufti Kakageldy Vepayev was sacked by the country's religious council for "serious failings in carrying out his religious work and for his undignified behaviour", the Neitralny Turkmenistan newspaper said. The announcement gave no further details of the mufti's alleged failings. Vepayev had held the post for less than two years after taking over from Nasrullah Ibn Ibadullah, who was also dismissed and later sentenced at a closed trial earlier in March to 22 years in jail for alleged involvement in a reported coup attempt against the authoritarian Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov in 2002. Turkmenistan's state news agency, Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary, reported on Thursday that Vepayev was replaced by Rovshen Allaberdyev, 27, who earlier served as the mufti of the eastern Lebap province. In Uzbekistan, the country's Supreme Court sentenced on Tuesday 15 people accused of complicity in a series of terror attacks that left more than 40 killed earlier this year. The trial initially opened in July but was later adjourned after suicide bomb attacks targeted US and Israeli embassies and the office of Uzbekistan's chief prosecutor in the capital, Tashkent on 30 July. The 15 people, including two women were sentenced to between 6 and 18 years. The same day, the US State Department said it had information that terrorists might be planning attacks in Uzbekistan in early September on or around the country's Independence Day celebrations. The warning to Americans travelling or living in the Central Asian nation came less than a month after the bombings in Tashkent. Washington's announcement was followed by a report by the AFP on Wednesday, noting that Tashkent had beefed up security in the country ahead of independence celebrations on 31 August and 1 September. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved on Thursday a US $1.5 million grant to provide affordable water services for the urban poor and conserve water resources in Uzbekistan. The grant, financed by the Japanese government, will help the mostly poor residents of apartment buildings in the cities of Jizzak, Gulistan, and Karshi obtain better, yet affordable, water services, the Manila-based development body said in a statement. According to the ADB, about half of the mainly Soviet-built apartment buildings in Central Asia's most populous state require major repair due to leaking roofs, basement flooding due to water pipe corrosion, leaking water systems or poor drainage and ineffective heating and hot water supply. In Kyrgyzstan, local health bodies imposed a ban on meat imports from neighbouring Uzbekistan after more than 20 people had been hospitalised with anthrax in south believed to be caused by an infected animal illegally imported from Uzbekistan, the AP reported on Tuesday. Moscow and Bishkek signed an agreement to jointly fight drug trafficking on Wednesday, the Russian Interfax news agency reported. The agreement, inked by the two countries' drug control agencies, envisages an exchange of information between the two countries, cooperative searches, exchanges of know-how and practical assistance. Viktor Cherkesov, head of Russia's drug control body, said the move was aimed at building an efficient barrier to prevent drug trafficking from Afghanistan, the world's top opium producer. Regarding the withdrawal of Russian border guards from the Tajik-Afghan border - the first barrier to narcotics from Afghanistan moving to Russia and western Europe, he said it would have a negative impact on the drug situation in Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. In Tajikistan, the government is cracking down on independent media ahead of the upcoming parliamentary polls in the country, media reports said on Tuesday. "The authorities' pressure on freedom of speech is increasing as the parliamentary elections draw nearer," Nuriddin Karshiboyev, chairman of the Tajik Independent Press Association, said. State printing houses refused to deal with new independent newspapers and journalists working for independent media outlets had been reportedly threatened after publishing reports criticising country's President Emomali Rakhmonov, Karshiboyev added. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RWB) said on Tuesday that the Jiyonkhon printing house in the capital, Dushanbe - the only institution that agreed to print the independent newspapers - had been closed on 19 August for alleged tax violations, a move editors said was a political step to silence independent media before next year's parliamentary elections. The media watchdog urged Rakhmonov that official procedures were not used as false pretexts for gagging the press.