By Niklas Swanström (8/27/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The situation in Central Asia has turned increasingly grim in recent years as the trafficking of opiates from Afghanistan has increasingly used the Central Asian route. United Nations statistics indicate that the Southern route for traffickers over Iran is stagnating or even declining in importance as the Iranian government has over the last decade made it gradually more difficult, and therefore expensive, for traffickers to transport their goods through the southern route. This forced traffickers to find easier and accessible routes to Europe, and with weak states and endemic corruption both in the regional governments in Central Asia and among Russian border troops stationed in Tajikistan, Central Asia has been an obvious choice.By Mamuka Tsereteli (8/27/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: On July 31, 2003 the U.S. power company AES Corp.By Ariel Cohen (9/10/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The apparent rapprochement between Russia and Saudi Arabia during Crown Prince Abdullah’s visit to Moscow is likely to have large implications for global energy markets, and especially for Caspian producers. There are significant forces which push Saudi Arabia and Russia into each other’s embrace. Oil, weapons and geopolitics drive their newly found common agenda.By Gulzina Karim kyzy (8/13/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: As the countries of Central Asia gained independence in 1991, areas that had constituted a single economic, social and political system were divided from one another. Boundaries that were of little importance acquired a lot more significance having a striking influence on ordinary lives. One such area is the Ferghana Valley, a multiethnic area unified by common history, culture, social and economic networks, but now spanning parts of three countries – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.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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