Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia, Tajikistan said it would tighten control over its largest natural reserve in the south in a bid to prevent bird flu, the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency reported on Saturday. The Tigrovaya Balka (Tiger Valley) reserve is a nesting-place for mass bird migration in the former Soviet republic and from March till late autumn, hundreds of thousands of wild birds annually migrating from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia come to the area close to the Afghan border. Sanitary and ecological posts will be set up in the reserve in the coming days, the report added. Tajikistan has already banned the import of poultry from China, Russia, Turkey and other countries where the outbreaks of bird flu have been reported. Avian influenza, or 'bird flu', is a contagious disease of animals caused by viruses that normally infect birds and less commonly, pigs, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Avian influenza viruses are highly species specific, but in some cases infect humans. According to media reports, the H5N1 killer strain of the virus has claimed the lives at least four in Turkey over the past few weeks, bringing the number of people killed by the disease in Asia since 2003 to over 80. Staying in Tajikistan, authorities in that country said on Thursday that the suspension of BBC radio broadcasts on FM frequencies over the past 15 days had not been politically motivated. "This fact is not political in character. This is a problem of procedure," AFP quoted Tajik foreign ministry spokesman Igor Sattarov as saying. "Tajikistan's law has been modified in 2004 and 2005, and due to those changes the BBC needs to obtain a license to broadcast on Tajik territory and bring this into accordance with Tajik laws." Last week, the BBC and the British embassy in Dushanbe protested the suspension of FM broadcasts, which so far had not affected medium-wave and short-wave BBC services. The radio company stressed that the 20-day deadline they faced was unrealistic for a process that would normally take up to six months to complete. The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also voiced concern at Dushanbe's decision. In Turkmenistan, sharp cuts in state pensions were announced on Thursday, a move that could rob many elderly people of their sole source of income, Reuters reported. Many pensioners were told it was part of a new reform that sought to eliminate a "mistake" in the previous pension scheme and hoped it was a temporary measure. But on Thursday Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, who has populated the capital Ashgabat with golden statues of himself, urged his government to proceed with the plan and "achieve order in the pension system", state news agency Turkmen Khabarlary reported him as saying. Under the measure, the average US $60 state pension in the country of six million people was cut by 20 percent. Women who worked less than 20 years in Turkmenistan and men who worked for less than 25 years have been receiving no pension at all – the rule particularly affects many non-Turkmen former Soviet citizens sent to the republic for work during the late Soviet times. Such initiatives by the government are nothing new. Niyazov last year threatened to close all hospitals outside the capital and the authorities have started cutting staff at regional clinics. The government has also started closing provincial libraries. In Uzbekistan, Nodira Khidayatova, an opposition activist, went on trial on Wednesday, Reuters reported, adding that according to her supporters the case was politically motivated. Khidayatova was arrested last month and put on trial for economic crimes, including tax evasion. Khidayatova is a leading member of the opposition Sunshine Coalition, a group financed by businesspeople that became prominent when it criticised Uzbek President Islam Karimov after the rebellion in the eastern city of Andijan in May and called for urgent political and economic reforms. Another Sunshine Coalition member, Sanjar Umarov, has also been arrested and faces prosecution for economic crimes. His trial is due to start later this week, human rights activists said. Going east to Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz lawmakers on Thursday called for the resignation of the country's security chief amid allegations that one of his senior officials was involved in a murder, AFP reported. The scandal in the Central Asian state erupted on Tuesday after Aldoyar Ismankulov, a National Security Service (NSS) official in charge of fighting organised crime, was released from custody. He had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the 9 January murder of a prominent international wrestler. The Kyrgyz Interior Ministry complained that the security service obstructed the investigation and that the Military Prosecutor's Office, which took over the case and ordered Ismankulov's release, had not followed proper procedures. Lawmakers voted unanimously for a resolution calling on the head of the National Security Service, Tashtemir Aitbayev, to step down. Under Kyrgyz law, the president appoints the security chief. The scandal comes amid concerns about the increasing influence of criminal groups in this small impoverished Central Asian state, which has been unstable since the March ouster of the long-ruling former President Askar Akayev. In recent months, the nation has seen a series of high-profile slayings, including the killings of three lawmakers, prison riots and battles for lucrative businesses.