Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia, in its second annual “failed states" index, Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace concluded that six countries in the wider region, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, are in the top 45 countries labelled as failed states out of 148 examined in the survey, AP reported on Monday. Despite ongoing US and international support, Afghanistan rank among the world's 10 most vulnerable states. Pakistan’s inability to police the tribal areas near the Afghan border and sectarian violence placed it high on the list. Uzbek authorities arrested two local human rights activists from the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan who were preparing a report on the abuses of farmers’ rights. The police charged Azamjon Farmonov and Alisher Karamatov with blackmail and accused the rights group of politicising a criminal case, AFP reported on Monday. In Kyrgyzstan, president Kurmanbek Bakiyev refused on Tuesday to accept the resignation of most of his cabinet ministers, AFP reported. The decision by 16 members of the government to resign followed street protests, fears of politically-inspired violence and a parliamentary resolution on 28 April, which found the government’s less than a year work unsatisfactory. In a joint appeal issued by two Turkmen opposition parties in exile in Prague on Monday, the Social and Political Movement of Watan and the Turkmenistan Republican Party accused Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov of plundering the country’s natural resources and destroying education, health care and the justice system, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported on Monday. Also in the appeal, they called on Turkmen citizens to unite to resist the Niyazov regime. The statement came only days after Global Witness, an international pressure group, alleged that the Turkmen president had squandered gas revenues. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan feature in the “10 Most Censored Countries” report by the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ), released on Tuesday, one day before “World Press Freedom Day”. Censorship criteria included state control of all media, the existence of formal censorship regulations, the use by the state of violence, imprisonment and harassment against journalists, jamming of foreign news broadcasts and restrictions on private Internet access, the report said. The Kazakh government will take over a television channel that is controlled by the president’s daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva. The government intended to “restore 100 percent control” over the Khabar channel in the coming months, the information minister Ermukhamet Ertysbayev said on Wednesday, adding the takeover was necessary to help improve the former Soviet republic’s “information security”, English General News reported. The US commission on international religious freedom recommended on Wednesday that Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan should be included on the blacklist of “severe religious freedom violators”, RFE/RL reported on Wednesday. The annual report also said that Iran should remain on the blacklist and that religious persecution is on the rise in Afghanistan. They also expressed concern that Turkmenistan is not already labelled a “country of particular concern” (CPC) in relation to religious freedom, AFP reported. Also on Wednesday, transport ministers from 13 Eastern European, Caucasian and Central Asian countries agreed to develop better transport links along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between Europe and Asia, AP reported. After the two-day meeting with officials from the Europe-Caucasus-Central Asia Transport Corridor Program (TRACECA), funding will be sought from the European Union (EU) for four short-term projects worth US $17 million.