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 from Central Asia to global markets through Russian territory, shoring up Moscow's position as a main supplier of Europe's energy needs. The project may mean the end of Western plans to build a trans-Caspian pipeline bypassing Russian territory. (New Europe, May 18)

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, head of the presidential security service, is being transferred to "another job," which was not specified. Nor was a replacement announced. Analysts cautiously view this as evidence of a post-Niyazov political opening.

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 free to travel to Europe are; Ruslan Mirzayev, a former national security advisor who is currently serving as minister of defense; Saidullo Begaliyev, Andijan’s former governor; Ismail Ergashev, a former top Defense Ministry official; and Kossimali Akhmedov, the former defense boss of the Eastern Military District, which encompassed Andijan.] An arms embargo and other sanctions are to hold up for another year, however. [Eurasianet, May 14]

"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 '80s. Why does the Beijing regime maintain this propaganda charade? Are we the ony ones who grasp the cognitive dissonance? From McClatchy Newspapers, May 6:

The ugly regime in Uzbekistan is certainly giving Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty all the grist they need for their propaganda mill. May 9:

Umida Niyazova fought for democracy and human rights in her native Uzbekistan.

But from a cage in a Tashkent courtroom on May 8, Niyazova made a "confession" that amounted to an apparent repudiation of all she stands for. She even criticized Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-based rights organization for which she had worked as a translator.

A court in Tashkent convicted Umida Niyazova, a human rights activist of distributing Islamic extremist propaganda, and sentenced her to seven years in prison May 1. Niyazova, who was a translator for based Human Rights Watch and wrote for independent online publications, was convicted after a two-day trial that journalists and international monitors were prohibited from attending. Amnesty International calls her a prisoner of conscience.

Canada has officially protested the sentencing a Canadian Uighur rights activist to life imprisonment in his native China. Huseyincan Celil was convicted on charges of "splitting the motherland" and participating in terrorist groups. Celil, who was born in China's Xinkiang autonomous region but won Canadian citizenship as a political refugee, was arrested in Uzbekistan and deported to China last May. Canadian officials have since been trying to gain access to him, and are angry that he had to appear at his trial—in the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court in Xinkiang—without a Canadian diplomat present. Canada also said it was concerned about claims that Celil had been tortured.

A court in Urumqi, the capital of China's restive Xinkiang autonomous region, has sentenced the son of exiled Uighur nationalist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Rebiya Kadeer to nine years in prison for secessionist activities. Ablikim Abdiriyim was found guilty of posting articles advocating secessionism on the Internet and related (nonviolent) offenses. (Radio Australia, April 18)