uzbekistan
Next door to everything happening on D-Chowk in Islamabad, an impressive gathering took place on Friday evening in a cozy hall of a local hotel where 23rd Anniversary of Independence of the Republic of Uzbekistan was celebrated.
The United States government’s decision to place Uzbekistan in the lowest category of its annual human trafficking report sends a message of solidarity to the well over a million Uzbeks forced to pick the country’s cotton crop, the Cotton Campaign, of which Human Rights Watch is a member, said today.
NATO formally opened its liaison office in Uzbekistan on Friday, a year after it started working and amid heightened Russian rhetoric about the western alliance encroaching on its backyard. Uzbekistan is unmistakably taking a different path than that of its neighbors. While Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are all (to varying degrees) participating in Russia's economic and military integration schemes, Uzbekistan has resisted.
ATO is opening a liaison office in Tashkent -- but don't read too much geopolitical significance into the move. A number of Russian-media outlets have reported the move, seeing in it yet another piece of evidence that Uzbekistan is moving away from Russia (leaving the Collective Security Treaty Organization) and toward the West (cooperating with the U.S. on military transit to and from Afghanistan, getting increasing military aid from Washington).
The most recent installment in the CPD Perspectives series, "Cases in Water Diplomacy" is an edited volume of six case studies in water diplomacy. Released on the heels of the 10th annual World Water Day (observed March 22nd, as mandated by the United Nations General Assembly), this collection highlights the ever-growing importance of strategic water diplomacy in all regions of the world.
One Beijing international primary school hosted an event on Saturday in order to enhance the cultural understanding and exchange between Uzbek and Chinese youngsters. This friendly exchange meeting, as the school called it, was held in Fangcaodi International School's affiliate Shiji Primary School in Beijing, under the theme of "Paint a flower of friendship, sing a song of peace."
In recent months, Uzbek leaders have intensified a campaign to contain Turkish economic and cultural influences in Uzbekistan. The most prominent component of this crackdown has been the arrest of 54 Turkish entrepreneurs over the past two years and the closure of at least 50 Turkish-operated businesses.