Weekly news wrap

The political crisis following the ouster of Kyrgyz president Askar Akaev on 24 March continued to dominate the news in the region this week. The crisis deepened when the two parliaments - the outgoing and the incoming - claimed legitimacy over the weekend. The situation eased when the outgoing legislative body suspended its activity for the sake of stability in the country. Although Kurmanbek Bakiev, nominated by the new parliament as Kyrgyz prime-minister and acting president, announced presidential elections for 26 June, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) doubted the viability of the polls, calling them unrealistic. However, newly elected speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament, Omurbek Tekebaev, a former moderate opposition leader, said that in order to have new polls Akaev needed to resign officially. Deposed president Akaev, currently in Russia, said that he would resign if the new parliament provided security for him to return to his homeland, news agencies reported. On Thursday, the visiting chairman of the OSCE, Dimitrij Rupel, said that Europe's main security body supported efforts to secure Akaev's formal surrender of power to pave the way for new elections to be within the constitutional framework. The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev, denounced on Thursday the uprising in Kyrgyzstan as "banditry and looting", the AP reported. The remarks by Nazarbayev came as some observers say last week's ouster of Akayev could embolden the opposition in Kazakhstan to unseat Nazarbayev, a former Communist leader accused of autocratism and corruption. "What happened (in Kyrgyzstan) cannot be called a revolution. According to (Kyrgyzstan's) current leaders themselves, it was banditry and looting," Nazarbayev said. Nazarbayev, who has led the oil-rich Central Asian nation since 1989, has amassed extensive powers in his hands and shown little tolerance for dissent. His term ends in January 2006 and he has already indicated he will seek another seven years in the next elections. More than 50,000 drug addicts, the majority of whom are teenagers, are officially registered in Kazakhstan, the Kazakh state media reported on Monday following a meeting of the interdepartmental commission for preventing drug addiction and drug trafficking held in the capital, Astana. Interior Minister Zautbek Turisbekov said that the number of drug addicts fell by 10 per cent against last year mainly thanks to the fact that the problem was widely covered in the media. Eleven ministries and departments aimed at working out new approaches and taking more effective measures to combat drug trafficking in Central Asia's largest country. Specifically, the media will get additional funds and 102 hours of air time will be allocated in the next six months to programmes on anti-drug issues. In Uzbekistan, a new project supported by the US would provide US $13 million to help fight HIV/AIDS in the country, the US Embassy said on Tuesday. The five-year project aims to build the technical capabilities of Uzbekistan to respond to HIV and AIDS, the report said. The project includes funding new prevention programmes and helping develop new HIV and AIDS control efforts. According to a United Nations report there were 11,000 registered cases of HIV in 2004 in Uzbekistan, the most populous Central Asian nation with 25 million residents. However, experts believe the real number may be 10 times higher and growing fast, fuelled by increasing intravenous drug use in the region. Other causes are an increase in prostitution and cross-border migration, officials said. Turkmenistan, the most reclusive state in Central Asia, disclosed figures on drug seizures for the first time since 1999, the Chinese Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday. The Turkmen law-enforcement agencies seized 266 kg of heroin and 665 kg of opium in 2004, Murad Islamov, deputy head of the Turkmen State Counter-Narcotics Committee, said at a conference on the fight against drugs in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat. Islamov said opium and heroin seizures in 2004 were "up from 2003." Back in 1999, Turkmen authorities seized 4,600 kg of opium and 240 kg of heroin, official figures showed. Earlier, the UN International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) rapped Ashgabat for a lack of cooperation and not providing information on drug seizures.