Central Asia

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Throughout 2021, Americans were absorbed in arguments over mask mandates, school closings, and the meaning of the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Meanwhile, geopolitical hot spots were erupting across Eurasia, forming a veritable ring of fire around that vast land mass. Let’s circle that continent to visit just a few […]

Authoritarianism

Kazakhstan must Cancel Order for Troops to Shoot Protesters ‘Without Warning’ (Human Rights Watch)

Human Rights Watch

Ensure National and Foreign Forces Respect Rights; Investigate Killings

Central Asia

For Russian hold on Trump, follow the Money, not the Sex tapes

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Buzzfeed has published the unverified allegations by a former MI6 analyst with good Russian contacts, contained in a two-page hitherto secret annex to the US intelligence community’s report on Russian hacking and interference in the 2016 election. These two pages have circulated in Washington for months. […]

Central Asia

The Plague of Karimov’s Rule in Uzbekistan

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The death of Islam Karimov, the president for life of Uzbekistan who came to power in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet empire had begun in 1989, has been confirmed. His stroke six days ago was a badly kept secret. I saw a headline from […]

Central Asia

Dragon Rising? China seeks Closer military Cooperation with Syria

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | Informed Comment | – – The Arabic press is reporting that a high Chinese official on a visit to Damascus has announced that Beijing intends to strengthen its military relationship with the current Syrian government. At the same time he affirmed that China would avoid involvement in the civil war. Reuters […]

Central Asia

Can Muslim Fundamentalism be Criminalized? Militant Secularism in Central Asia

contributors

By Farangis Najibullah and Charles Recknagel | ( RFE/RL) | – – Nabijon spends nearly 10 hours a day inside his one-room barbershop on a dusty backstreet in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second-largest city. He has no shortage of customers. “Business has never been this good,” says the third-generation barber, who politely declines to give his full […]

Africa

By the Time Washington wakes up to China’s Eurasian Strategy will it be too Late?

contributors

By Alfred W. McCoy | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – For even the greatest of empires, geography is often destiny. You wouldn’t know it in Washington, though. America’s political, national security, and foreign policy elites continue to ignore the basics of geopolitics that have shaped the fate of world empires for the past 500 years. Consequently, […]

Central Asia

Pakistan as Hong Kong West: China’s New Silk Road & US Failure

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit, full of pomp and circumstance, to Pakistan on Monday, but its centerpiece was a $46 billion investment in the country, dwarfing the US Congress’s $7.5 bn. program initiated in 2008. Whereas the US likes to sell useless weapons systems that […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s China Card

contributors

By Dilip Hiro | (Tomdispatch.com) – Call it an irony, if you will, but as the Obama administration struggles to slow down or halt its scheduled withdrawal from Afghanistan, newly elected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is performing a withdrawal operation of his own. He seems to be in the process of trying to sideline the country’s major […]