By Hooman Peimani (8/14/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Sudden independence in 1991 imposed on the five Central Asian countries a transitional process from the Soviet command economy to a type of market economy. Today, their economic systems have all the negative characteristics of the two systems while lacking most of their positive ones. They suffer from numerous problems with a direct social impact, including declining living standards, high unemployment and increasing poverty.
By James Purcell Smith (8/28/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: In July 2002, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Administration decided to drop efforts to seek dialogue with reformist forces in Tehran, and instead, to look for democratic changes in Iran.
By Michael Denison (8/28/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The recent origins of the current government crackdown can be traced to the domestic political crisis of November 2001. The President's son-in-law, Rakhat Aliev, who was then the deputy head of the Committee for National Security (successor to the KGB), became embroiled in business disputes with some of the younger, ascendant figures in the government hierarchy. Aliev, who was also allegedly behind a Russian internet site critical of Nazarbayev, was believed to have overreached himself.
By Aftab Kazi and Tariq Saeedi (8/28/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The first Trilateral Steering Committee meeting of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan, to implement the intergovernmental Agreement on the Construction of Trans-Afghan gas pipeline was held in Ashgabat, July 9-10. It was welcomed by the American Deputy Chief of Mission and officials of the Asian Development Bank who participated in the meeting as observers. The ADB has agreed to invest in the feasibility study and to provide between 2 to 3 billion dollars for pipeline construction from Turkmenistan's Daulatabad gas fields to the Pakistani port of Gwadar across Afghanistan.
The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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