News Digest
NEW MILLIONS FOR AFGHAN SECURITY
By empty (5/18/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
A donors meeting in Geneva is said to have produced informal pledges worth tens of millions of dollars towards reconstructing Afghanistan\'s security services - enough, the UN says, to make a start on a number of security-related projects. The meeting, attended by around 35 donor countries, the UN\'s special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, and Afghanistan\'s Interim Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, was aimed at firming up offers of assistance to help Afghanistan rebuild its army, police force and other security services. Mr Brahimi, refused to reveal figures, pointing out that offers and commitments had been made verbally and in a piecemeal fashion.DETAINED KAZAKH OPPOSITION LEADER HOSPITALIZED
By empty (5/18/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Former Pavlodar Oblast Governor Ghalymzhan Zhaqiyanov, one of the leading members of the opposition movement Democratic Choice for Kazakhstan, was hospitalized early on 18 May in Pavlodar after losing consciousness after a 12-hour interrogation. Doctors had advised earlier in the interrogation that Zhaqiyanov urgently required medical treatment for heart problems; his condition is said to be \"critical.\" Zhaqiyanov, who turned 39 on 8 May, was taken by force from Almaty, where he was under house arrest, to Pavlodar last month.THOUSANDS OF PROTESTERS CONTINUE HIGHWAY BLOCKADE IN KYRGYZSTAN
By empty (5/18/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Thousands of picketers blocked one of the main highways in Kyrgyzstan on Saturday in the sixth day of protests that have set the Central Asian country on edge. The ministry estimated the number of picketers at about 2,000 but opposition members said there were as many as 8,000 and that they were ready to march to the capital. Protests throughout the country over the past week have called for President Askar Akayev to resign and for the government to drop charges against lawmaker Azimbek Beknazarov.GEORGIAN DISPLACED PERSONS OCCUPY ANOTHER TBILISI INSTITUTE
By empty (5/18/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Some 150 families of displaced persons from Abkhazia took refuge on 16 May in the Institute of Geology in Tbilisi. Municipal authorities cut electricity and water supplies to the building, but the displaced persons have locked themselves in and refuse to vacate the premises, claiming they have nowhere else to live. Two months ago, police forcibly evicted some 150 displaced persons who had occupied Tbilisi\'s Botanical Institute.Visit also
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Joint Center Publications
Analysis Niklas Swanström and Leah Oppenheimer, "Invisible Ink: Looking for the Lost Trade between China, Russia, and Central Asia", ISDP Policy Brief, 13 March 2013. 
New Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr with Adib Farhadi, Finish the Job: Jump-Start the Afghan Economy, December 2012.
Conference Report Cheryl Benard, Eli Sugarman, and Holly Rehm, Cultural Heritage vs. Mining on the New Silk Road? Finding Technical Solutions for Mes Aynak and Beyond (in cooperation with the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage) December 2012.
Article Svante E. Cornell, "The 'Afghanization of the North Caucasus: Causes and Implications of a Changing Conflict", in Stephen Blank, ed., Russia's Homegrown Insurgency: Jihad in the North Caucasus, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2012.