If you still think religion isn’t political, this should disabuse you of your illusions. Ironically, the exiled Dalai Lama moves towards modernity, suggesting his successor could be elected rather than chosen by the cosmic forces of reincarnation. China, bizarrely, attempts… Read moreChina bans unauthorized reincarnation
Uzbekistan’s incumbent President Islam Karimov was unanimously nominated to run for a third seven-year presidential term this December by his Liberal Democratic Party Nov. 6. Karimov is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, and the New York Times writes… Read moreUzbek despot to become torturer-for-life?
In our last post on China, we noted that it is now the key nation falling under the rubric of the 1992 Pentagon “Defense Planning Guide” drawn up by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby which said the US must “discourage… Read moreChina emerges as “peer competitor” —in race for global oil
We’ve already had to warn the heroic Buddhist dissidents of Burma and colonized Uighur people of China’s far west against allowing themselves to be exploited as propaganda fodder by the Bush White House. Now it seems we have to warn… Read moreDalai Lama pawn in Bush’s oil wars?
The last time this happened, there was evidence of sabotage. From Reuters, Sept. 7: NEAR ZHEZKAZGAN, Kazakhstan — Kazakhstan, home to Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, accused Moscow on Friday of not doing enough to ensure the safety of its space launches… Read moreKazakhstan protests over space crash
Work crews and police arrived early June 15 to demolish twelve more homes at the village in Karasai district outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, where an embattled Hare Krishna commune is based. “The houses were literally crushed into dust,” Hare Krishna spokesperson… Read moreKazakhstan escalates Hare Krishna crackdown
Via A-Infos, June 7: In summer of 2006, during summit of the G8, Russian president Vladimir Putin promised that Russia will join to international program to spread nuclear energy. Russia’s role in this project is to be a storage of… Read morePeace camp to protest Siberia nuclear waste facility
A package of constitutional amendments approved May 18 by Kazakhstan’s parliament allow President Nursultan Nazarbayev to remain in office for the rest of his life. Under Kazakhstan’s current constitution, Nazarbayev—who has been in power since the 1991 collapse of the… Read moreKazakhstan moves towards permanent autocracy; Russia signs nuclear pact
The heads of Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan—Vladimir Putin, Nursultan Nazarbayev and Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov—met in Turkmenistan May 12 and formalized a decision to build a new gas pipeline along the coast of the Caspian Sea. The new pipeline will carry gas… Read moreRussian pipeline deal kills trans-Caspian plan?
In one of his boldest moves since his swearing-in three months ago, Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has sacked a top security official who helped build the oppressive regime of the late Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov. Official media announced that Akmurad Rejepov,… Read moreDeturkmenbashization for Turkmenistan?
The European Union (EU) has lifted a visa ban on several top Uzbek officials, despite a failure to make substantive advances on human rights in the country [according to international monitors]. [The four formerly on the list who are now… Read moreEU relaxes Uzbekistan restrictions; rights groups protest
“Socialist villages”? Sounds to us more like keeping a restive population under control to faciliate a stable investment climate for tourism and other capitalist development—akin to the “model villages” the right-wing Guatemalan dictatorship imposed on the Maya peasantry in the… Read moreTibet: China orders forced resettlements
