Weekly news wrap

Tajikistan remains the poorest of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries, said Michael Mills, a leading economist of the World Bank’s human development sector for Europe and Central Asia regions. His comments came at the presentation of the World Bank's recent poverty assessment update for the former Soviet republic in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, on Thursday. Mills said an update for 2003 had revealed that about two-thirds, or 64 percent, of the population of the Central Asian republic lived on just over US $2 a day, giving it the highest level of poverty in the Eastern European and Central Asian regions, even though it had decreased by 17 percent from 81 percent in 1999. Staying in Tajikistan, Germany is expected to provide over $12 million to Dushanbe for the implementation of projects in the country within the framework of the protocol of intergovernmental talks on financial and technical cooperation for 2005-2006, the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency reported. The document summarising the results of the third meeting of the Tajik-German commission was signed in the Tajik capital on Wednesday, the Tajik economy and trade ministry said. Within the framework of the protocol, Berlin intends to finance rehabilitation of the country's primary education system, as well as to invest funds in the reconstruction of the distribution station of the Nurek hydropower plant and development of the country’s healthcare system. On Monday in Turkmenistan, the Halk Maslahaty (People’s Council) - the country's highest legislative body - rejected President Saparmurat Niyazov’s proposal to hold presidential elections in 2009, calling on him to stay in office for life. The People’s Council - an assembly of more than 2,000 top officials and elders hand-picked by Niyazov to legitimise his most crucial decisions - had not made a final decision, but the request was a strong indication that the autocratic leader could remain in power until he dies, the report said. Also on Monday, Niyazov barred religious leaders in the country from studying abroad, saying that they would study only inside the country, at the Turkmen State University. Most of the mullahs in Turkmenistan - the most reclusive Central Asian state controlling one of the world's largest natural gas reserves - have in recent years studied in Turkey or in Saudi Arabia. Although Niyazov said that the move was aimed at preventing outside interference in the country's religious affairs, some observers claim it is part of Niyazov's overall policy of isolating the country. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are expected to sign an interstate agreement on the Turkmen-Uzbek border, on the usage of irrigation facilities and other issues, at a meeting scheduled for 19 November in the Uzbek city of Bukhara, the Turkmen media reported this week. Relations between Ashgabat and Tashkent have been tenuous since the alleged November 2002 assassination attempt on Niyazov, with the Turkmen authorities claiming that the Uzbek secret police were involved. On Tuesday, Ruslan Sharipov, an Uzbek journalist and a human rights activist whose criticism of Uzbekistan's repressive regime had landed him in prison, fled the country for the United States, media reports said. "I've received political asylum from the United States," Sharipov reportedly said from California. Sharipov, 26, was convicted for committing homosexual acts and having sex with a minor in May 2003. He was sentenced to over five years in prison, which was later reduced to four years. On 23 June, a judge decided to release him from a work colony in the capital, Tashkent, and confine him to the western city of Bukhara. That report coincided with an Uzbek court's verdict to turn down an appeal by Internyus-Uzbeksitan against its closure. Internyus-Uzbekistan is the local branch of the Paris-based Internews International, an international media training and development group. Earlier, in September a court in Tashkent ruled to suspend the operations of the NGO for six months, allegedly for breaking laws regulating non-profit organisations. In Kazakhstan, an outbreak of anthrax has killed 27 cattle in the Qarqaraly District of the central region of Karaganda, the Kazakh media reported on Thursday, adding that the area had been quarantined. According to local experts, although anti-anthrax vaccine worth some $910,000 dollars was injected in all cattle in the area this spring, some local farmers failed to vaccinate their cattle in time and local veterinary control was inadequate. Anthrax cases have not seen in the area for the past six years. Kazakhstan's main opposition party, Ak Zhol, on Wednesday called for a national referendum to introduce democratic changes and invalidate recent parliamentary elections that it criticised as flawed, the AP reported. The Ak Zhol party suffered a crushing defeat in the 19 September parliamentary polls but refused to accept the official outcome, saying it was falsified. Western observers said the vote fell short of democratic standards. A media group headed by the Kazakh president's daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, filed a lawsuit against an opposition leader for alleged defamation, the AP reported on Thursday. The organisation's lawyer Kanat Sakhariyanov said the Khabar media group on Wednesday filed a slander lawsuit against Altynbek Sarsenbayev, co-chairman of the Ak Zhol party, after he accused the group of monopolising the media market and breaking financial regulations. Sarsenbayev made the allegations in an interview with the opposition Respublika newspaper on 1 October, accusing Khabar of illegally taking over other media organisations and operating without reporting to financial inspectors. Sakhariyanov said the allegations were groundless and has asked a court to order Sarsenbayev to publicly retract the claims and pay the group over $700,000 in damages. Meanwhile, a new Silk Road connecting China's hinterland with the industrial centres of western Europe may to be completed within 10 years, the AFP reported on Wednesday, citing officials involved in the project. The road is expected to extend westward from eastern China through Central Asian and European countries to the Atlantic Ocean. Such projects are particularly relevant to the five Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, all of which are landlocked. Along with Liechtenstein, Uzbekistan has the added distinction of being doubly landlocked, before gaining access to the sea. According to the United Nations, because of their landlocked status, Central Asian nations suffer from high transportation costs affecting both imports and exports, which impede their development; reliance on the goodwill of transit neighbours in order to gain access to world markets; and dependence on the transport infrastructure and administrative structures of their transit neighbours.