Weekly news wrap

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week toured Central Asia, visiting Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and making an unscheduled trip to earthquake-ravaged Pakistan. Her visit follows Washington’s vow earlier this year to make democracy-building central to bilateral relations with these countries. The US is vying with Russia and China for sway over a region that is a narcotics crossroads, a launch pad for the US campaign against the Taliban, and home to some of the world’s largest oil finds in recent decades. Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday assured the US its troops could continue using a base in the ex-Soviet republic until the situation is stabilised in Afghanistan. In a meeting with Rice, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed a statement saying Kyrgyzstan supported the presence of US-led forces “until the mission of fighting terror in Afghanistan is completed”. Washington has been ordered out of its base in neighbouring Uzbekistan. A US-based nonproliferation group and Kazakh officials on Saturday unveiled a project to eliminate weapons-grade nuclear fuel, capable of being used to make more than 20 atomic bombs. The US $2 million project was initiated by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, dedicated to reducing the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. About 14,000 kg of nuclear fuel containing highly enriched uranium from a mothballed Soviet-built nuclear reactor in western Kazakhstan will be blended down for fuel in civilian reactors. Kyrgyzstan announced on Monday it had agreed with Uzbekistan to boost bilateral cooperation on the war against terrorism. The agreement was reached during the latest summit of the Central Asian Cooperation Organisation in the Russian city of St Petersburg, Kyrgyzstan’s presidential press bureau reported. Foreign journalists helped Islamic militants in the uprising in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, a witness in the trial of 15 alleged participants told a court in the capital, Tashkent, on Monday. Muhammad Dadakhojayev, who also faces trial over the 13 May violence, said the journalists “advised the militant group to gather people at the square [and] distribute food to them, and to dress up in civilian clothes”. Human rights groups and refugees from the bloodshed claim more than 700 people were killed. Tashkent said 187 people died, mostly militants. The Internews Network on Tuesday lost its court bid to continue working in Uzbekistan, where it has operated for 10 years supporting independent media. After 10 minutes’ deliberation, the Tashkent city court denied the US-based network’s appeal against a court order last month to shut down its Uzbekistan office. “We expected our appeal to be denied because it’s been obvious from the start the authorities want to boot us out for political reasons,” said Catherine Eldridge, Internews’ Country Director for Uzbekistan. “[But] we’ll continue to fight this decision through the courts.” Economic development in energy-rich Kazakhstan takes priority over democratic reform, President Nursultan Nazarbayev said on Tuesday, less than two months ahead of a presidential election. “The economy, followed by politics, the liberalisation of society by way of economic development. That’s what is called the Kazakh way,” Nazarbayev said at a development conference. He described the process of democratic reform as underpinning the country's “future stability” but said this process must not evolve at the expense of “a weakening of the state”. Tajikistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday freed a journalist sentenced to two years in prison for writing articles criticising a local prosecutor. The court cancelled the July conviction of Jumaboi Tolibov for “hooliganism, illegally entering a residence and violating his responsibilities” in his job as head of a district council’s legal department, the National Association of Independent Journalists (NAIJ) told AFP. The court instead found Tolibov guilty of the lesser crime of libel and ruled his time spent in jail was sufficient punishment. Natural disasters this year have caused more than $62.5 million in damage to Tajikistan, the country’s Ministry of Emergency Situations (MoES) said on Tuesday. The disasters have killed at least 47 people, destroyed 1,429 households and caused damage to 4,654 more. Russian customs officials on Wednesday reported a rise in drug smuggling, particularly heroin. “Heroin is displacing other drugs little by little and this trend is going to continue,” said Viktor Mareyev, a spokesman for the Russian customs service. News agency Ria-Novosti quoted Mareyev as saying 730 kg of heroin were seized by officials in the first nine months of this year. He said there had been an increase in drug smuggling on “practically all the borders of Russia” but most at risk were those with Kazakhstan and Ukraine.