OSCE Waters Down Police Mission to Kyrgyzstan
After much delay, bad press and political protest, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has decided to water down a planned police advisory mission to Kyrgyzstan, announcing that it...
View ArticleLeaked Kyrgyzstan Cable: Corruption “Appallingly High”
Kyrgyzstan watchers have zeroed in on a juicy dispatch from the latest influx of wikileaked diplomatic cables: Ostensibly written by current U.S. Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller in October 2008, the cable...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan Ranks Last in Major Education Assessment
Officials at Kyrgyzstan’s Education Ministry have little reason to celebrate this holiday season. The troubled Central Asian country ranked last in the Program for International Student Assessment...
View ArticleTriple Restaurant Fire in Kyrgyzstan’s Capital: Bizness? Nationalism? Pork Hate?
Simultaneous nighttime fires struck three restaurants in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, this week, all of them specializing in Russian or Ukrainian cuisine. While investigators poke around in the...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan: Bishkek Looks to Georgia as Role Model for Justice Overhaul
Copyright show: No After 18 years on the police force, Major A. has a good relationship with his superiors: If he slips his supervisor a little cash, he says, he is excused from work and free to earn...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan’s Prison Strike: Crime and Politics Bunking Together?
Up to 10,000 prisoners, including inmates in all of Kyrgyzstan’s 11 prisons and six detention centers, have joined a hunger strike that began on March 25, media reports cite officials as saying. But...
View ArticleFrom Kyrgyzstan to Siberia, Heroin Smugglers Get Creative
Snow White nearly died from them. Trick-or-treating children once found razors in them. Now an ingenious gang of drug smugglers has been busted for stuffing them – yes, apples – with $14 million worth...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan: Pentagon’s $750K Women's Shelter Stands Deserted
Copyright show: No A derelict hospital refurbished last year to serve as a battered women’s shelter with nearly $750,000 in aid from the US military in Kyrgyzstan has never been used for its intended...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan to Pay Osh Victims’ Families: Can It Be Done Fairly?
Two months after passing a deficit-plagued budget, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament has amended it, reallocating about $12.9 million to compensate those who lost relatives in last June’s ethnic violence in Osh...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan: Tragic Traffic Accident Casts Spotlight on Poor Road Safety
Traffic in Kyrgyzstan is always dangerous for pedestrians. Even sidewalks are perilous places. Police in the impoverished southern province of Batken have detained a 16-year-old suspected of crushing...
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