Last Friday (May 16) police in France, Germany and the Netherlands arrested 10 men suspected of providing funds to the Islamic Movment of Uzbekistan (IMU) (AP). Eight of the suspects were arrested in France and one each in Germany and the Netherlands. Interestingly, at least nine of the arrestees are believed to be of […]
The BBC World Service has produced a documentary about the murdered Tashkent theatre director Mark Weil (guardian obituary here). The documentary is called ‘Beyond Mark Weil’ and is presented by the always excellent Natalya Antaleva. Weil, a Russian Jew, founded the Ilkhom Theatre in 1976. It was the first independent theatre in the USSR […]
The Washington Post carries a snappy review of a Central Asian restaurant in NYC that specialises in kosher food. Taam-Tov is based in the Diamond District and focuses on the cuisine of Bukhara, which has a long-established Jewish community. The reviewer writes:
‘11:54 a.m. I’m on my way to the Diamond District, where young men […]
It seems likely that the British Government will support the continued suspension of the visa ban on Uzbek officials when the matter comes up for discussion at the end of the month. On 29 April the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) will meet in Luxembourg to discuss a range of affairs […]
An Uzbek human rights activist has urged the EU not to soften its line on Uzbekistan. Writing in the guardian, Abdujalil Boymatov - who has been granted refugee status in Ireland - argues that, ‘Repressive as Soviet rule was, I can say that the regime of President Karimov is five times more repressive.’
Boymatov’s rap […]
The New Yorker has a profile of Paul Wolfowitz, erstwhile neocon and now President of the World Bank (but not for much longer, maybe …). Few people divide opinion quite like Wolfowitz, but he didn’t shy away from cutting off funds to Uzbekistan following Andijan (h/t: Oxblog). This was in line with his own […]
BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been kidnapped in Gaza in the Palestinian Territories, and so the BBC has been rebroadcasting some of his reports for the foreign affairs programme From Our Own Correspendent. One of the reports recounts a meeting with the Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum in Afghanistan.
It’s a fascinating account, though parts of […]
Hi. A few months ago the hard-drive on my iBook went kaput and I lost all my music (please, spare the lecture on why I should’ve backed up all my data … I know!) Anyway, I’ve been trying as best I can to restore my collection from memory. The relevance here is that I […]
Alain Deletroz of International Crisis Group (ICG) has written a fairly fierce condemnation of EU-Uzbek relations for European Voice. With the three-monthly review of sanctions imposed in November 2006 due imminently, and the EU apparently considering a ’softer’ approach towards Central Asia (as Nathan at Registan reported recently), Mr Deletroz poses some blunt questions:
‘But […]
Last July Rumil picked up on an item from the New York Post about Jacob “The Jeweller” Arabo, purveyor of “bling” to Hip-Hop royalty and other celebrities. The Manhattan-based jeweller (website here) is a Bukharan Jew whose family emigrated to the US in 1979, initially living in Brooklyn before moving to Queens. Last July […]
