By Eric Hagt (7/30/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: Beijing’s White Paper on Xinjiang, released in May of this year, calls for a continuation of the ambitious 1999 strategic campaign to ‘Develop the West’. Key implications of that policy include the continued expansion of cotton growing and energy exploitation. Both are vital industries for Xinjiang’s development and yet both create a demand for water that is unsustainable in a region that already shows signs of environmental strain.By Rizwan Zeb (7/30/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The growing distrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan rose to its peak on 9 July, when a mob attacked and destroyed the Pakistani embassy in Kabul. Kabul alleges Islamabad is supporting Taliban elements and that these Taliban remnants are crossing freely into sanctuaries on Pakistan’s side of the tribal area. Recently Pakistani paramilitary personnel and an Afghan militia exchanged fire on the Mohmand Agency border, when the latter claimed that Pakistani forces had entered their territory.By Jaba Devdariani (7/30/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: During the last years, speculations were mounting in academic and policy communities that the United States and the EU were turning a blind eye on apparent lack of progress in democratic development of the three South Caucasus countries. It was seen as symptomatic that the South Caucasus started to be increasingly viewed in the context of the broader Central Asia region, rather than as a part of Eastern Europe. This trend was dominant in U.By Andrew McGregor (7/16/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
BACKGROUND: The reaction from the Tatar leaders of official Russian Islam to the American campaign in Afghanistan was mixed. Mufti Talgat Tadjuddin referred to the ‘aggressive, half-learned, maniacally ambitious rabble forming the core of the Taliban’. Siberian Mufti Nafigulla Ashirov condemned the American ‘crusade’ against Islam and warned of the threat posed to Russia by a permanent US military presence in Central Asia.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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