News Digest
PRO-RUSSIAN FORCES SUSTAIN HEAVY LOSSES IN CHECHNYA
By empty (4/18/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
At least 21 pro-Russian members of the Chechen Interior Ministry's elite OMON police were killed after their truck convoy was attacked in Grozny just hours before President Putin's state-of-the-nation address on 18 April Two vehicles were hit by consecutive mine blasts approximately 100 meters from Chechnya's main police headquarters, and Chechen fighters then opened fire on the stalled convoy. The deputy chief of the Chechen administration Bislan Gantemirov said that the attacks could have been "meticulously planned and carried out by the rebels to coincide with President Putin's speech." (Interfax).ARMENIAN OPPOSITION EFFORT TO RESCUE A1+ ISSUE FAILS IN PARLIAMENT
By empty (4/17/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
After garnering the required number of signatures to force a special session of parliament, the opposition attempt to pass its proposed amendments to the law on the media failed to gain a quorum of the 131-seat legislature on 16 April. The opposition is seeking to reinstate the suspended A1+ independent television station and replace the government-appointed broadcasting commission. The move was blocked by the parliament's largest faction, the Unity bloc, and the pro-government Armenian Revolutionary Federation.NEW DEFECTOR CRITICIZES TURKMEN PRESIDENT
By empty (4/17/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In a statement published on 17 April, Turkmenistan's former Prime Minister Aleksandr Dodonov announced that he is joining the opposition National Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan group based in Moscow. The 55-year-old Dodonov, who also served as water resources minister from 1996 to 1998, accused President Saparmurat Niyazov of "usurping all branches of power," and said Niyazov's "dilettantist" interventions in economic matters, particularly problems of agriculture and irrigation, threaten to lead the country to ruin. He added that the government's "fantastic" statistics on record-breaking plantings and harvests were myths.TASHKENT MOVES TOWARD CONVERTIBILITY
By empty (4/17/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Uzbekistan's official commercial exchange rate plunged from 920 soms per dollar to 1,400 soms per dollar on 15 April as banks set their exchange rates practically to match the real, black-market rate. The black-market rate stands at about 1,450 soms per dollar. Unification of currency exchange rates by the end of June 2002 is a key requirement of the IMF structural reform plan that Tashkent agreed to earlier this year.Visit also
Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, "Promise and Peril in the Caucasus," AFPC Insights, March 30, 2023.
Oped S. Frederick Starr, Putin's War In Ukraine and the Crimean War), 19fourtyfive, January 2, 2023
Oped S. Frederick Starr, Russia Needs Its Own Charles de Gaulle, Foreign Policy, July 21, 2022.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Rethinking Greater Central Asia: American and Western Stakes in the Region and How to Advance Them, June 2022
Oped Svante E. Cornell & Albert Barro, With referendum, Kazakh President pushes for reforms, Euractiv, June 3, 2022.
Oped Svante E. Cornell Russia's Southern Neighbors Take a Stand, The Hill, May 6, 2022.
Silk Road Paper Johan Engvall, Between Bandits and Bureaucrats: 30 Years of Parliamentary Development in Kyrgyzstan, January 2022.
Oped Svante E. Cornell, No, The War in Ukraine is not about NATO, The Hill, March 9, 2022.
Analysis Svante E. Cornell, Kazakhstan’s Crisis Calls for a Central Asia Policy Reboot, The National Interest, January 34, 2022.
Book S. Frederick Starr and Svante E. Cornell, Strong and Unique: Three Decades of U.S.-Kazakhstan Partnership, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, December 2021.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, S. Frederick Starr & Albert Barro, Political and Economic Reforms in Kazakhstan Under President Tokayev, November 2021.