What human rights? Activists say that the ruling regimes in Central Asia deny their citizens basic freedoms, like freedom of the press or assembly. I have always thought that that is beyond the point. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are considered part of the top 8 most repressive in the world. I believe them. Religious freedom is routinely denied in the other countries as well. But don’t these discussions seem kinda lofty compared to Kazakhs losing a huge percentage of their life savings or a Kyrgyz town being denied drinking water for two days? Clearly, the rights to food and livelihood are closely intertwined with political freedoms, but shouldn’t they start with the former?
Also, in response to the devaluation of the tenge, Kazakh president Nazarbaev proposed a world currency, the acmetal, and a new regional currency, the eura, for regional transactions. This has got to be one of the dumber things I have ever heard. Get the man an economics textbook.
