The Government of Tajikistan has decided not to carry out a planned transition to a professional army, rather than a conscripted one. It has not renounced reform, just Western-prescribed remedies.
Some analysts are suggesting that Tajikistan is increasingly wary of President Bush’s pro-democracy policy, and is increasingly trying to distant itself from Western nations. […]
There are practically no honest despots anymore. It is testament to just how thoroughly democracy has won the war of ideas that even the most stalwart of absolute rulers still feel inclined to pay lip service to democracy. Even Turkmenistan’s Niyazov has referenced presidential elections in the future.
Tajikistan is not the bottom […]
Iran has signed a trilateral agreement with Tajikistan and Afghanistan for the construction of Sangtuda-2 power plant in Tajikistan and the distribution of electricity from Tajikistan to Iran (via Afghanistan). The power plant is supposed to provide additional 1bln kWt/h of electricity generation capacity to Tajikistan and will mainly be financed […]
The problem of HIV/AIDS has been a relatively new one in Tajikistan. Closed borders have kept the country and its people isolated from HIV/AIDS during soviet rule. Such isolation has been a blessing, but it became a curse in recent years since it led to a knowledge vacuum that took its toll on the […]
Tajiks, or at least some of them, are capitalizing on United Nations micro-loans.
Initiated by the Tajik government and supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the local Women in Development bureau is providing assistance to rural women through training and micro-credits.
UNDP’s programme on community development in Tajikistan is currently working in 30 districts […]
The United States ambassador to Tajikistan is worried about rage surrounding the Danish cartoons of Muhammad getting out of control the way they are in Afghanistan. In order to head off violent protests, Ambassador Richard Hoagland wrote the following “Open Letter to the Tajik People.”
Basically, he condemns the drawing, praises free speech, and […]
There is some fishy maneuvering going on in Tajikistan. In a situation not unlike Kazakhstan, the Tajik government seems to be straddling the line between maintaining democratic appearances, and keeping civil society on a short leash. Tajikistan will have presidential elections November, 2006, and initial indicators of a fair election are not […]
Reuters reports that the former commander of the Tajik Presidential Guard is on trial. This is an interesting story, which gives an insight to what’s allowed and what’s not for Tajik elites. The story is strikingly similar to that of Khodorkovsky in Russia in that it is political (accusation about overthrow of […]
