The rather crappy photos above are of Kumtor tractor trailer convoys in the Issyk-Kul region of Kyrgyzstan. The close-up shows one convoy parked outside of Barksayn (Барскаун, a.k.a., Barskoon, Barkaun, etc.), the second shows a …

Preliminary results from Kazakhstan’s parliamentary election give Nur Otan party 80.7% of the vote and ~7% each, clearing the threshold to enter parliament. In light of these results, neweurasia’s Schwartz wonders whether what we’re really looking at is a reincarnation of old strategies from Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

neweurasia’s English site is taking the Christmas-New Year’s week off. While we’re gone, we invite you to check out our Russian site (www.neweurasia.net/ru/) and our, ahem, seasonal “classical”, “Why Ded Moroz is infinitely more badass than Santa Claus”. ;-)

neweurasia’s Schwartz gives an overview on the situation currently developing in Kazakhstan’s Mangystau Province [updated again on 20/12/2011]. We also invite our Kazakh language readers to visit our official Kazakh blog run by Asqat Yerkimbay @ http://neweurasia.net/kazakhstan

We are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Best Blogger Award: Gulasal Kamolova (gulasal.wordpress.com) and Tashpulat Rahmatulaev (rtoshpulat.blogspot.com). Both are bloggers working in Uzbekistan.

WikiLeaks has released a cache of documents from 160 international intelligence contractors who are engaged in developing software and tools to monitor, disrupt and even hijack communications devices. There’s so far no word yet about what made it’s way into Central Asia, but we’ve got a small picture about the region’s big neighbor to the north…

Our friends over at the Registan are running a guest post from an American Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) regarding the sudden departure of the Peace Corps from Kazakhstan. I must say, this is really news …

ACCELS is pleased to announce 2012-13 academic scholarship program of the US-Central Asia Education Foundation (CAEF). The CAEF provides financial need-based scholarships to academically qualified students of Central Asia for undergraduate level studies in business …

In Kyrgyzstan, this weekend has hopefully initiated the start of a positive new era for the country (although, of course,time will tell). It’s also signalling another new beginning: neweurasia and Global Voices Online (GVO) are …

About two weeks ago neweurasia‘s Annasoltan wrote her first-ever post for our old friends and partners, Global Voices Online (GVO): “Turkmenistan: Global Village or Village Behind the Globe?” I’m writing about it now to make …