Why is it that I am immediately suspicious of an article entitled ‘Central Asia Rediscovers its Muslim Roots’ (courtesy of Reuters)? Is it because I think it will perpetrate the myth that Islam was totally …

What follows is one part of a cross-blog initiative, which takes the role of Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus as its central theme:

Uzbekistan is historically part of what Marshall G. S. Hodgson termed …

On 27-28 April the SCO culture ministers met for the third time in Tashkent. This from Uzreport:
“At the end of the meeting, the ministers approved a plan for multilateral cultural cooperation for 2007/08, a work …

The latest weekly newsletter from the China and Eurasia Forum brings news of a new anti-drugs initiative from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). According to the report on crienglish.com:
“Delegates from SCO member countries Russia, Kazakhstan, …

In a recent posting on the World Bank’s decision to halt lending to Uzbekistan, James remarked,
“For countries as mired in corruption as Uzbekistan, it is impossible to ensure that loans and grants made directly to …

On 3rd-4th November of last year SOAS hosted a conference, “Cotton Sector in Central Asia: Economic Policy and Development Challenges”. The papers have now been posted at the website for the SOAS Centre of Contemporary …

After the events of the past year I suppose something like this was inevitable. Now, politicians are touchy about media coverage at the best of times, but the wording of the resolution appears to echo …

There’s a fair bit of coverage concerning the death in Tashkent of Avron (Avraam, or Avraham) Yagudayev, a prominent member of the city’s community of Bukharan Jews. This has raised concern as it follows shortly …

In 2005 UNAIDS reported that Uzbekistan had more than 5,600 officially recognised HIV cases (pdf). It said:
“Among the Central Asian republics, Uzbekistan is experiencing the most dynamic epidemic. In 1999, just 28 HIV diagnoses were …

The International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) has just released its fifth annual Media Sustainability Index (download full MSI 2005 here). Unsurprisingly, Uzbekistan is rated pretty poorly – in all the four main criteria by …