Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan loom over the people of Bishkek.
Contributor/Getty Images
Recent laws and pro-Putin sentiment by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov have sparked concern that the Central Asian country is backsliding on democracy.
A massive dust storm billows across the western desert of Iraq on April 26, 2005.
Shannon Arledge/USMC via Getty Images
Desert dust storms are increasingly picking up materials like sewage, herbicides and other human-made waste and transporting them on tiny particles that are easy to inhale.
Karachi could channel exports from central Asia.
Asianet-Pakistan/Shutterstock
Could Pakistan become a Singapore of the 21st century?
Fear and intimidation: everyday life in Kabul under the Taliban.
EPA-EFE/Samiullah Popal
Two years on from taking control of Afghanistan the Taliban continues to rule through fear and threatens the stability of the whole region.
Mobilisation: Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
UPI/Alamy Stock Photo
Some of the key articles from our coverage of the war in Ukraine over the past week.
Vladimir Putin says he understands Xi Jinping’s ‘concerns’ over the Ukraine war.
EPA-EFE/Sergei Bobylev/Sputnik/Kremlin pool
A rapid shift in the balance of power between Moscow and Beijing is becoming apparent as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meets in Central Asia.
A military patrol detains a protester in Kazakhstan.
Valery Sharifulin\TASS via Getty Images)
A former US ambassador to Kazakhstan explains the strategic and economic importance of Kazakhstan to the US.
The Hazara have long been targeted in Afghanistan, and many fear violence will intensify with the Taliban in power.
Dimitris Lampropoulos/NurPhoto via Getty Images
With the Taliban again in power in Afghanistan, minorities like the Hazara may have the most to lose.
A protest against bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, on April 8, 2021, after a young woman abducted for marriage was found dead.
Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP via Getty Images
In rural Kyrgyzstan, 1 in 3 marriages begins with an abduction. Older generations see this as a harmless tradition, but two brides have been killed since 2018. A study finds other problems, too.
Anton Balazh / shutterstock
Climate change means more water is evaporating than is flowing in.
Jakub Czajkowski / shutterstock
We found evidence of irreversible ecological breakdown millions of years ago – this time round, we should heed the warning signs.
Unprecedented: an opposition rally in Minsk ahead of the August 9 Belarus election.
Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA
Opposition candidates have been arrested amid mass protests and a worsening coronavirus pandemic ahead of the August 9 election.
Industrial premises being disinfected in Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan city.
Turar Kazangapov
How Kazakhstan failed to deal with COVID-19 and became the first country to enter a second national lockdown.
Caucasus mountains in Svaneti, northwest Georgia.
Polscience/Wikimedia
How does reporting on the environment promote democracy? A US journalism professor describes conditions in the republic of Georgia, where the media isn’t equipped to cover issues like pollution.
Shutterstock
Central Asia is at the centre of two new initiatives by China and Russia that run against a longstanding economic vision of the US.
A Russian plane delivers 10,000 AK-47 rifles to the Afghan National Security Forces.
Hedayatullah Amid/EPA
Russia is pursuing influence in Central Asia and competing with the US. Afghanistan offers it a chance to do both.
The aftermath of the attack in Manhattan, October 31 2017.
EPA/Jason Szenes
With several terror attacks committed by Uzbeks abroad in 2017, one of the world’s harshest regimes is coming under scrutiny.
huseyin ozdemir1/Shutterstock
Migration may help to pay Western pensions, but life is hard for those left behind.
A bridge too far?
sibgat
China’s One Belt, One Road initiative is holding international summit in Beijing, but no Western leaders have said they are coming yet.
Protests in April and May galvanised the government to crack down on dissent.
Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters
The jailing of the two men shows the government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev well understands that it can no longer underestimate the power of new forms of civic activism.