In order to understand the issues of climate change in Central Asia, one has to understand the nature of water distribution in the region. First of all, Asia is a large continent, with less shoreline per land mass than other continents. This has profound effects on its ability to obtain water, particularly in the Central […]
Expedia and the United Nations Foundation have teamed up as part of the World Heritage Alliance to promote sustainable travel to Mexico among its tours of UNESCO World Heritage sites. As part of the collaborative effort, Expedia announced that its employees are joining forces with local community-based tourism companies to create cultural and natural tours in Mexico. Expedia has […]
Thabo Mbeki, whom leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) appointed to act as mediator between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) when it held its summit in Tanzania last week, appears remarkably sanguine about the crisis in Zimbabwe, all in all. In a recent interview Mbeki, when asked if he […]
Today, RFE/RL Newsline reports that twelve suspected Taliban fighters from Afghanistan will be transferred from Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan to the newly refurbished Pol-e Charki Prison near Kabul. Soon, other Afghanistani nationals in Guantanamo Bay will also be transferred to Pol-e Charki. Last year, Financial Times reported that 110 detainees in Guantanamo would […]
10:00 a.m., April 2-Flooding that began March 27 has resulted in the death of more than 80 people and the displacement of hundreds of people in one-third of Afghanistan's provinces. Mudslides and flooding also killed ten and displaced many in Tajikistan two days ago; today, earthquakes at 6.2 on the Richter scale have affected Dushanbe and outlying areas. […]
Can good governance be encouraged through financial incentives? Sudanese businessman Mo Ibrahim believes it can be and he has established a prize in his name to do so. Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan will head the committee making the award, which “will go to former presidents and prime ministers from sub-Saharan Africa who left […]
Russia's new law that bans illegal migrants from working in city marketplaces and other retail jobs has just gone into effect. As reported by the World Bank, most temporary migrants in Central Asia move to Russia to find work. Russia is the second largest destination for migration in the world. Migration statistics show that Kazakhstan sends […]
Last week at Central Asian Voices, Martha Brill Olcott wrote that we have expected Central Asian Republics to assimilate Western concerns, but not the other way around. In short, by grafting human rights concerns onto Realist theory, we made a checklist of activities we want Central Asian states to accomplish, but have ignored the prime domestic drivers […]
Mexican journalist and women's rights activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro is the recipient of Amnesty International USA's 2007 Ginetta Sagan Award for Women's and Children's Rights. Cacho is the Founder and Director of the Refuge Center for Abused Women of Cancun and also serves as President of the Center for Women's Assistance. A specialist on gender-based violence, Cacho […]
In last week's entry on Tajikistan, I summarized what I considered to be the potential foreign policy fallout of President Rakhmon's name change and most of all, his directive that others also have their surnames recorded in official documents with the Russianized ending removed. Some great insights came out of the comments: First, the issue of the […]
In what has to be among the most disappointing news from southern Africa in a long time, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has chosen to acquiesce to Robert Mugabe's rule. A meeting that beforehand was hailed as preparing to take a stance against a regional despot instead ended up asking "The West" to ease […]
The poet Rumi, who is celebrated now in American poetry circles for his poems of love, would be 800 this year. Jalal ad-Din Rumi was born in the year B.C.E. 1207 (that's a politically-correct A.D., more or less) in what is now Afghanistan; his family moved from Afghanistan during the Mongol invasions, travelling through Central Asia to […]
One of the mandates of the New South Africa was to try to Africanize many of the names of places and institutions. After all, in that predominantly African country, why would the new, non-racial democracy want to perpetuate the names of the heroes of the white regime, the very people who had disfranchised Africans, who had […]
The New York Times has a feature on the Democratic Republic of the Congo's adjustment to its election six months ago. Not surprisingly, a half a year has not done much to overcome decades of misrule. Congo has long stood as the emblematic example of African chaos. It is far too early to be optimistic about […]
The Washington Post's travel section recently emphasized Africa. Among the countries featured were Zambia, Namibia, and Angola.