Weekly News Wrap

This week in Central Asia, another foreign NGO faces closure in Uzbekistan, where over the past six months Tashkent has expelled several foreign organisations, including the Eurasia Foundation, Freedom House, the American Bar Association and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), UzReport.com reported. A court in Tashkent ordered the closure of US-based Global Involvement through Education for activities including Protestant missionary work, the court said Thursday. Under the guise of English language courses, foreign nationals were attempting to convert students at local colleges from the country's traditional faiths, Islam and Orthodox Christianity, to Protestantism, the court said. Five Kazakh media advocacy groups on Monday criticised a new government-sponsored media bill, which if approved, would allow media organisations to be closed down for technical violations and increase the legal liability of media editors and owners, AP reported. “The bill being proposed by the information ministry is a step backward, toward totalitarianism and stagnation,” the media advocacy groups said in a statement. Information minister, Ermukhamet Ertysbaev, the initiator of the bill, said its purpose was to establish order in the chaotic media sector. In Kyrgyzstan, lawmakers on Thursday approved an opposition-backed draft bill that would turn the state-controlled national TV-channel, MTRK, into a public broadcaster, RFE/RL reported. The bill must be approved by Kyrgyzstan’s president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, before it becomes law. Foreign ministers from four Central Asian countries and Japan met on Monday in Tokyo and agreed to strengthen cooperation on fighting terrorism and guarantee the safety of regional oil supplies, English Politics News reported. The ministers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and Taro Aso, Japan’s foreign minister, also agreed to combat drug trafficking, fight poverty, promote human rights and enhance trade. Aso also expressed hope that a gas pipeline from Central Asian countries to Pakistan and India through Afghanistan would be constructed, saying that the former Soviet countries were behind the idea. Securing a stable energy supply in Central Asia is crucial for energy-poor Japan, AP reported. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbaev said during a conference in the capital Astana, on Thursday that the country would sign an agreement with Azerbaijan this month to pump Kazakh-produced oil through the newly-opened BakuTbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, RFE/RL reported. Kazakh officials said the country could annually ship up to 30 million tons of oil through the US $4 billion pipeline. Kyrgyz defence minister, Ismail Isakov, said that the country is not trying to expel US troops stationed at the Manas military airbase, from the Central Asian nation’s territory, RFE/RL reported on Tuesday. His comments came almost a week after talks between US officials and Bishkek over the amount of rent Washington should pay for use of the base which ended inconclusively. President Bakiev has asked the US to pay $200 million – a 100-fold increase on what the US is currently paying for the base. Kazakh police have found 10,717 foreigners staying illegally in the former Soviet republic, a Kazakh news agency reported on Wednesday. Kazakhstan, the wealthiest nation in the Central Asian region, is a destination country for migrant labourer and sex workers. Those detained were mainly from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. AJ/SC