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06/9/2010

News/ POLITICAL NEWS

Political news

by 2007-04-28

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2007-04-28

THE PACE OF "TALIBANIZATION" APPEARS TO ACCELERATE IN PAKISTANI TRIBAL AREAS [10:28:00]

The pace of the "Talibanization" in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan appears to be accelerating this spring. The trend has been obscured by recent internecine fighting, pitting mainly Pashtun militants against fighters affiliated with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. In recent years, the area along the Afghan border that comprises the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a nominally autonomous region of 27,000 square kilometers, has developed into haven for various radical Islamic groups. The in-fighting erupted in mid-March, supposedly after Pashtun insurgents blamed IMU loyalists for the death of an Arab commander who was allied with a local Pashtun militant leader. In the months prior to the clash, resentment among indigenous radicals toward the Uzbeks had been building, reportedly due to the IMU’s involvement in organized criminal activity, including robberies and murders. Some analysts believe the clash was a byproduct of US pressure on Pakistan’s leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to expel foreign militants from Pakistani soil. Whatever the motivation, native Pashtun groups in early April succeeded in dislodging the IMU from its stronghold in and around Wana, the main center of the South Waziristan region. Hundreds of Uzbeks were reportedly killed in the fighting, although independent confirmation was impossible. Regardless, the IMU now appears to have been crippled, if not altogether neutralized as a fighting force, enabling Musharraf to show the Bush administration that his government is making tangible progress in containing Islamic militancy. Yet the push against the IMU is distracting from a larger threat to US objectives in Afghanistan, and more broadly, throughout Central Asia. Local militants -- Pakistanis who call themselves Mujahedeen, but are often referred to as Taliban in media accounts -- have taken administrative control of large portions of the tribal areas, upending traditional leadership structures. They are now in the process of building a quasi-Caliphate that operates under Sharia, or Islamic law. As they consolidate their hold over the tribal areas, these militants are also striving to expand their reach into other territories, in particular neighboring North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) to the East. Recent developments in Tank, a NWFP town bordering on the tribal area of South Waziristan, highlight the dangers posed by Talibanization. On March 26, a local militant leader and a police officer were killed in a clash that erupted as authorities tried to disrupt Islamic radical efforts to recruit local schoolchildren as insurgents, and even as suicide bombers. According to local reports, Islamic radicals burst into a private school in Tank, the Oxford Public School, forcing the students to assemble and subjecting them to a propaganda harangue, urging them to join the jihad. The school’s principle, identified as Farhid Mehsud, alerted local authorities. The fighting broke out when law-enforcement officers arrived at the premises. Two days later, in retaliation for the government action to intervene, militants launched a night assault on the town, attacking the police station, the barracks of the area’s paramilitary force, government offices and banks. The militants withdrew before dawn, taking Mehsud, the school principal, with them and setting fire to municipal offices and banks. Officials called in regular army units to restore order. Over the past year, southern areas of NWFP -- including Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat and Bannu -- have been increasingly exposed to Talibanization, with Islamic radicals attempting to close down Internet cafes, as well as music and DVD stores. In some instances they have also taken action to stop barbers from shaving beards. In the northern districts of NWFP -- including Kohat, Charssada, Mardan, Dir, Swat, and the provincial capital, Peshawar -- Talibanization is also on the rise. In February, for example, several foreign-affiliated Peshawar schools were forced to close after receiving militant threats. Such militant actions forced the ruling Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (JUI) political party, often viewed as the patron of the Taliban, to distance itself from such unpopular actions. The JUI is one of the most influential political forces in NWFP, and is currently a major partner in the provincial government. On April 19, a JUI-sponsored conference of Islamic clerics approved a statement that described suicide bombings "un-Islamic and against Sharia." Two days later, a rocket was fired at the house of JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman. It is widely assumed that militants were responsible for the attack, which caused only minor damage and caused no injuries. JUI officials are concerned about the growing threat to its authority posed by the militants. The party announced that it would hold a mass demonstration April 27 to condemn the attack. The underlying aim, not specifically stated, was to make a show of force to the militants. JUI officials have threatened to mobilize more than 1 million people for street protests, unless the Pakistani government took fast action to bring the culprits to justice. Editor-s Note: Abubakar Siddique covers Afghanistan and Pakistan for EurasiaNet.

ARMENIA: OPPOSITION PARTIES CRY FOUL OVER TELEVISION COVERAGE [10:28:00]

Armenian opposition parties are complaining that high prices for television campaign ads and extensive coverage of pro-government political parties are skewing Armenia’s parliamentary campaign. International and local media monitoring reports appear to support the contention that the government and parties in power are dominating television election news coverage. An April 8v15 survey of more than a dozen television stations conducted by the Yerevan Press Club found that the governing Republican Party of Armenia had the most television campaign ads and received the most exposure from the "frequency of mentions" in television programs. Second place was held by the pro-government Prosperous Armenia Party and third place by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), a member of the governing coalition. ARF leaders have threatened to go into opposition if the May 12 parliamentary election is not deemed free-and-fair. Much of the trouble comes down to television ads. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has stipulated that parties must have access to two minutes of free television airtime and four minutes of paid airtime per day. But fees for television campaign ads are estimated to have at least tripled since the 2003 parliamentary voting. The opposition says it does not have the resources to cover the costs The Impeachment bloc, a group pushing for the impeachment of President Robert Kocharian on the alleged grounds that his 2003 election was rigged, has only purchased three minutes of political advertising on television, stated bloc member Nikol Pashinian, editor-in-chief of the daily Haykakan Zhamanak. "Under the law, anyone has the right to be nominated as a candidate, to say and express what he wants. However, to pay 80,000 drams (about $223) for one minute [of advertising] is affordable only for those who have been thieving for years," Pashinian claimed. A member of the political council of the hardline opposition Hanrapetutiun (Republic) Party agrees. "Everyone is saving their money to go on the air during the last few days [of the campaign], which greatly damages the party’s campaign," said Suren Sureniants. (The official campaign ends on May 10). As a result, he added, the Republic Party is "trying to find other options" to get its message out. Veteran opposition parliamentarian Arshak Sadoyan, leader of the National Democratic Alliance Party, suggests that the best option is to go from house to house to try and meet with people in person. "When I go to the regions, people are surprised and ask me whether I am really participating in the elections," said Sadoyan, who is well known for his fiery anti-government speeches. "Clearly, they won’t know [me] because I don’t have the resources to pay for a campaign ad and to appear on the TV screen, and the most powerful means of propaganda is television." Representatives of Armenia TV, the country’s largest private TV station, and Kentron TV, owned by Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian, declined to comment to EurasiaNet about their campaign ad sales. The timing of campaign ads also plays a role, opposition members say. Sureniants, the Republic Party official, deemed it "illogical" that public television has scheduled a straight hour of campaign ads at 5:15pm, given that the station’s prime time falls between 7pm and 11pm. Representatives of parties allied with the government often appear on the station during prime-time talk shows, doubling the impact of the parties’ publicity campaigns, Sureniants charged. "Everything is done deliberately," commented Sureniants, terming the practice "a news blockade" backed by the government. In response to the accusations, Public Television Deputy Executive Director Gnel Nalbandian told EurasiaNet that the number of parties taking part in the campaign renders providing equal airtime for all parties a challenge. "Of course, the broadcasts of public television cannot equally cover the events of all parties," Nalbandian said. "Even technically, we are unable to cover the events of the 25 political parties participating in the elections and we have found ourselves between a rock and a hard place." Public television is preparing a response to coverage concerns raised in a March 29-April 17 interim election report by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR). The report showed that public television devoted 43 percent of its political prime-time news coverage to the government, with coverage in "an exclusively neutral and positive tone." The Republican Party of Armenia received the most airtime of parties running for parliament, with 16 percent of total news coverage, according to the report. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation received 4 percent of airtime, and the opposition Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) Party received 5 percent. Meanwhile, studies conducted by the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan show that 75 percent of public television coverage is devoted to the three parties of Armenia’s governing coalition (Republican Party of Armenia, Armenia Revolutionary Federation, United Labor Party) and only 25 percent to parties that are not members of the coalition. The OSCE/ODIHR plans to publish a third report on the election campaign with fresh media monitoring details the week of April 30, said OSCE/ODIHR media analyst Ivan Godarsky. The media monitoring results will also be included in the organization’s final report, to be released "six to eight weeks" after the election, he added. Editor-s Note: Marianna Grigoryan is a reporter for the independent online weekly ArmeniaNow in Yerevan.

TURKEY GRAPPLES WITH CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS SURROUNDING PRESIDENTIAL VOTE [10:28:00]

Turkey’s presidential vote was cast into disarray April 27, as opposition politicians engaged in political maneuvering in the hopes of thwarting the election of a moderate Islamist candidate. Opposition MPs, including those from the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), boycotted the April 27 session of parliament convened to select the country’s next president. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. They argued that their action deprived parliament of a quorum, thereby rendering the legislature incapable of holding a valid presidential election. They went on to file suit in Turkey’s Constitutional Court, calling for the annulment of the presidential vote and seeking new parliamentary elections. In the opposition’s best-case scenario, a new legislative election would deprive the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) of an outright majority, and possibly sink the candidacy of the party’s present presidential candidate, Abdullah Gul. Under the Turkish Constitution, the presidency is a largely ceremonial post. Two-thirds of MPs, or 367 deputies, were required to be present for the first round of voting to be valid. Controversy erupted on the parliament floor over whether that total was actually achieved. Opposition leaders insisted that their boycott succeeded, despite an appeal by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for all MPs to attend. By one count, only nine independents joined the 352 AKP deputies -- six short of 367. Erdogan, however, insisted 368 MPs were in attendance. Whatever the actual number of MPs in the chamber, Gul was named only on 357 ballots when the first-round votes were counted, falling short of the number required for election. The AKP scheduled the next round of voting for May 2. If that round again fails to produce a two-thirds majority for a candidate, then the threshold falls to a simple majority of 276 votes for successive ballots. Thus, Gul would appear assured of victory in the third round, if not sooner. The Constitutional Court, however, could block the AKP’s plans, at least temporarily. It has signaled that it will rule on the opposition suit before the second round occurs. The turn of events represents a major political coup for CHP leaders, who have led the secularist charge against an AKP-led government that they claim has not renounced political Islam. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The Constitutional Court case is just the latest twist in a lengthy electoral saga. While France has known its presidential candidates for months, Turkey only learned who its new head of state was likely to be on April 24, just a few days before the first round of voting. Widely expected to stand himself, the charismatic, but abrasive Erdogan announced instead that Gul -- currently foreign minister -- was AKP’s choice to become the next head of state. With the exception of the CHP members, other assorted nationalist-secularists and conservative elements within the military, most Turks appeared happy with Erdogan’s choice. A political analyst with the business daily Referans, Cengiz Candar, called Gul "the optimal choice" for president. The traditionally pro-secularist chief editor of daily Hurriyet and Turkey’s most powerful journalist, Ertugrul Ozkok, wrote two columns praising Gul, and chiding secularists for their inability to modernize as successfully as the AKP. International investors, meanwhile, appear to retain confidence in the Turkish economy. After Gul’s candidacy was revealed, Istanbul’s stock exchange hit a record high on April 25. Fitch Rating, a US financial evaluation agency, greeted news of Gul’s candidacy with hints that it might raise Turkey’s rating later this year. Much of the market’s optimism was a response to the end of weeks of political uncertainty. But it was also buoyed by the assumption -- widespread outside Turkey -- that Gul represented a compromise for the AKP, and a proof of political maturity on the part of Erdogan. To an extent that is true. Widely respected at home and abroad, untouched by allegations of corruption, an economist by training and a diplomat by nature, Gul raises fewer secularist hackles than the prime minister. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. At the same time, Gul has always been closer to traditional Turkish political Islam than Erdogan has. While Erdogan’s power base has always been Istanbul, where he was mayor in the 1990s, Gul was a top lieutenant of former prime minister Necmettin Erbakan, the grand old man of Turkish political Islam. Gul parted ways with Erbakan a long time ago, leading the rebellion against him after Erbakan’s party was forced out of power by the army in 1997. Despite that, though, there is strong evidence to suggest that Gul’s selection represented a victory for the party’s conservative Islamist wing. "Gul was neither Erdogan’s first or second candidate for president", Hurriyet’s economics editor Erdal Saglam points out. First, of course, was Erdogan himself. Second was a caretaker president from further down the ranks of the party, one of the few AKP members whose wife doesn’t wear an Islamist headscarf. That was something the AKP’s number three, Bulent Arinc, who serves as parliamentary speaker and is the leader of the party’s conservative wing, could not tolerate. Days before the announcement of Gul’s candidacy, Arinc promised that his party would "elect a religious president." Later, he reportedly told Erdogan that he would personally stand as a candidate if Gul was not selected. Faced with the threat of an AKP split, Erdogan caved in and tapped Gul. The choice ultimately suited him well too: like his own wife, Gul’s wife, Hayrunnisa, wears a headscarf. With her ensconced in the presidential palace at Cankaya, Erdogan could turn to his supporters and say he had not caved into secularist pressure. For analyst Mehmet Ali Birand, though, the one clear victor of these last minute machinations is Arinc. "His power within the party has grown in full view of the public", he says. "With Gul outside the parliament, he will now take the party’s number 2 spot." Fluent in Arabic and English, Gul represents a marked contrast to out-going president Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who speaks only Turkish and leaves Turkey as rarely as possible. The head of the European Parliament’s Liberal faction, MEP Graham Watson, was among many outside observers who lauded Gul’s selection. "As a progressive pro-European, he has the ability to inject new momentum into [Turkey’s] EU accession proceedings," Watson said of Gul. Turkish analysts tend to be more pessimistic about the extent of Gul’s possible influence as president. Many analysts, including Birand, characterized Gul’s likely election as president as "exile" -- an act that could severely damage Turkey’s EU accession efforts. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. When Turkey’s EU project came close to collapse in December 2004, it was Gul who saved it, he points out. "Nobody in the AKP believed in the EU as much as Gul. Nobody followed through the reforms as tenaciously as he did." There is also the issue of who will replace Gul as foreign minister if he becomes president. Many experts are predicting the current finance minister, Ali Babacan, could take over the foreign portfolio. Such a development might unsettle financial markets, as Turkey’s business community has grown comfortable with Babacan’s stewardship. Even if Babacan stays where he is, some observers say delicate balances in the party will be lost with Gul’s effective departure from day-to-day politics. "Babacan has kept relations with the IMF on a constantly good footing", Hurriyet’s Erdal Saglam wrote in an April 26 commentary. "But he has always been unwilling to put direct pressure on [Erdogan] when it came to making difficult decisions. He has had a tendency to fall back on Abdullah Gul, to persuade Erdogan via Gul." Editor-s Note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.

MURDERS SHINE SPOTLIGHT ON EVANGELICAL ACTIVITY IN TURKEY [10:27:00]

The recent murder of three evangelical Christians in the Turkish city of Malatya is shining a spotlight on the increasingly violent nationalist backlash against missionary activity. The three men -- two Turks and a German -- were killed April 18 at a Bible distributorship in Malatya, a city in southeastern Turkey famous for its dried apricots and hard-edged politics. The victims had their hands and feet bound before having their throats slit. According to Turkish newspaper reports, the suspects arrested at the scene, five young men who were living together in a residence belonging to a religious foundation, told investigators they committed the crime in defense of Islam. "There’s a huge witch-hunt that has been opened up in Turkey about missionary work," says Jerry Mattix, a missionary from Yakima, Washington, who has been working for the last five years with an evangelical church in Diyarbakir, an ancient walled city some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Malatya. "The risk is that we live in an overwhelmingly Muslim society where certain segments of the society see you as divisive to the country. We are a target." The Sunday following the Malatya murders, Mattix’s four-year-old church -- one of Turkey’s newest -- was rocking with the sound of some 40 men, women and children singing and clapping exuberantly. Up on a stage decorated with a simple wooden cross, a musician with a hand drum started playing a propulsive beat, while another musician strummed along on the saz, a long-necked Anatolian lute. The group, mostly converts from Islam, started to sing a familiar hymn in Turkish, "Amazing Grace," but with a distinctive Eastern feel. Across the way from the evangelical church is Diyarbakir’s Meryem Ana (Virgin Mary) church, easily among the world’s oldest churches. Built only 300 years after the birth of Jesus, the church has been in continuous use by Diyarbakir’s Christian community ever since. Recent decades, though, have seen an exodus of Christians from Diyarbakir and the surrounding region and now the church rarely attracts more than a handful of mostly elderly worshippers for its Sunday services. The scene on this small cobblestone street in Diyarbakir reflects the larger picture in Turkey. While the country’s historic Christian communities -- who have been living in the area that comprises modern Turkey since Christianity’s earliest days -- are fighting to hold on as their numbers dwindle, Protestant evangelical groups are making inroads in the country. At the same time, as they become more visible, Turkey’s evangelical Christians are experiencing an increasing level of nationalist hostility, fed, evangelical leaders say, by both the media and politicians. Evangelists say their work has become both easier and harder in recent years. On the one hand, reforms associated with Turkey’s European Union membership process have meant that proselytizing is now legal, and that more churches have an opportunity to obtain legal status. On the other hand, the number of violent attacks against Christian targets is rising. In 2006, several evangelical churches were firebombed, and a Protestant church leader in the city of Adana was severely beaten. In February of this year, Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest working in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, was shot and killed by a 16-year-old. "We didn’t expect [the Malatya murders], but, on the other hand, it wasn’t a surprise," says Carlos Madrigal, the leader of an evangelical church in Istanbul, the first such church given legal status since the founding of the modern Turkish republic 84 years ago. "There are always communications from the authorities and the media accusing Christians and missionaries of trying to divide the country, and this [the murders in Malatya] is, in a way, a result of these declarations and this approach to Christians in the country." Adds Madrigal: "They cut their throats like an animal, like a sacrifice. They were the first martyrs of the evangelical church in this country." Despite the murders’ religious overtones, experts believe they can be better attributed to the extreme nationalism and anti-Western xenophobia that are both on the rise in Turkey. "Islam is a strong identity and you have these people who think they are Muslims and Turks and that all others are infiltrating the country and plotting against it. The problem is that this kind of ideology v anti-Western and anti-Christian -- is being promulgated by some very powerful people," says Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist who writes frequently about Islam and nationalism. Some of the most forceful language warning against missionary activity has actually come from Turkey’s secular establishment. For example, a 2001 report by Turkey’s National Security Council (MGK) listed missionaries (along with Islamic fundamentalists) on a list of domestic security threats. Last year, Rahsan Ecevit, the wife of late prime minister Bulent Ecevit, who was a paragon of the Turkish secular left, told the press that missionaries are working on dividing Turkey and paying Muslims to convert. "We are losing our religion," she said. Salim Cohce, a professor of history and sociology at the state-run Inonu University in Malatya, said he believes that missionaries working in Turkey are focusing on "on destabilization, manipulation and propaganda." "If they are not controlled, this can be dangerous for Turkey," added the professor, who claims that Turkey today has 500,000 of what he calls "crypto-Christians." (Turkey’s official Christian population is around 100,000.) There is a historical antipathy in Turkey towards missionaries, who were active in the region during the final days of the Ottoman Empire. At that time, missionaries were seen as little more than agents for the European powers that were opposing the Ottomans. "Times have changed. Many people don’t understand that Christian missionary work today is the same thing as when a Mosque or Islamic publishing house is opened up in the middle of London," says Akyol. Turkey’s evangelists, meanwhile, want the government, which is dominated by the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party, to take a more proactive approach against the anti-missionary rhetoric and violence. Despite the murders in Malatya, evangelical leaders say, they are not ready to retreat from their work. On the Sunday following the murders, the large wooden front doors at the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church were still wide open during services, with several curious visitors coming in to take a look and pick up a Turkish version of the New Testament. "Our congregation is used to this kind of thing, maybe not of this magnitude, but we have no fear," Ahmet Guvener, the church’s gray-haired and charismatic leader, says about the Malatya murders. Editor-s Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

CENTRAL ASIA FACES GRIM ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURE -- UN REPORT [10:27:00]

Mudslides produced by heavy rain over the past 10 days have wrought havoc in southern Kyrgyzstan, damaging hundreds of homes and killing livestock. Such natural disasters could well become more severe and more frequent in Central Asia over the coming decades, according to a new United Nations report on climate change. The report, issued April 6 by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), paints a grim picture for Central Asian governments and policymakers. In the strongest warning yet issued about the influence of humans on the environment, the report says with "high confidence" that soon the region’s mountain ranges will not be able to provide the water necessary to support current agricultural practices. "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis" is a summary of over 1,000 pages of findings made by the IPCC. The report initially forecasts avalanches, increased runoff and earlier spring peak discharge from glaciers and floods due to unseasonable rains. But by the end of the 21st century, disappearing glaciers in the Tien Shan, Pamir and Hindu Kush mountain ranges will result in decreased river flows and severe water shortages. Temperatures may experience a dramatic increase, while crop yields are forecast to fall 30 percent by 2050. The April 6 summary is just one of a series of publications from the IPCC that have identified significant problems for water supplies in the area. "The IPCC’s warnings about melting glaciers, floods and eventual water scarcity have been identified as one of the key vulnerabilities," said John Coequyt, an energy and global warming specialist for Greenpeace. "It’s one of the report’s most important findings. But few governments worldwide understand this, and I don’t think any of the countries in Central Asia have taken it onboard." While rising temperatures may provide short-term benefits for the region’s lucrative cotton industry, the lack of ample irrigation may ultimately doom the cash crop. Mass unemployment looms in already unstable areas, especially in the Ferghana Valley, if Central Asia’s cotton sector collapses. In Tajikistan, the cotton industry employs about 80 percent of the country’s rural labor force and the crop is the country’s second largest export. However, 75 percent of Tajikistan’s poorest citizens live in cotton growing areas, according to the World Bank. Elsewhere, cotton production employs up to 3 million Uzbeks and generates 24 percent of the country’s $8.7 billion GDP, providing the Uzbek government with an annual income of over $1 billion. These exports account for about 60 percent of Uzbekistan’s hard currency export earnings. To avoid economic and political disaster, experts say immediate water-sector and agricultural reforms are needed. Central Asia’s geography, which compels states in the region to share water resources, dictates an international solution. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, hundreds of inter-governmental documents have been signed on water policy. Yet each agreement suffers from a fatal flaw -- none is legally binding. Thus, tension over water resources -- pitting upstream (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) against downstream nations (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan) -- continues to plague regional relations. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Fast action in some instances could be undertaken without inflicting major pain to national economies, experts contend. "Only for climate-change deniers could [the IPCC report] appear to be a worst-case scenario." said Peter Bloch, an agrarian reform expert who has worked on a variety of donor-funded programs in Uzbekistan. "[In Uzbekistan] there is a huge potential for water savings with relatively minor investments in equipment." The Uzbek government, however, is unlikely to take the steps necessary to achieve such savings. Agrarian discontent simmers in Uzbekistan, where government forces have clashed with farmers and local business owners. Meaningful reforms that encourage better resource management would, at the same time, give farmers greater control over their crops -- something that is not in the political elite’s interests. The problem is such no state can solve it on its own. Yet, regional leaders have not demonstrated any desire to agree on a comprehensive regional framework to manage water resources. "Individual farmers will not have any incentive to be environmentally -responsible’ if their neighbors -- whatever their land ownership status -- are not -responsible’ as well," said Bloch. Environmental degradation and water scarcity have the potential to propel Central Asia into a downward spiral of conflict. "The thing about climate change is that it makes existing problems worse," said Coequyt. "The problems that Central Asia faces today are going to be exacerbated by climate change in the very near future."

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2006 - 01 - [31] [30] [28] [27] [26] [25] [24] [23] [21] [20] [19] [18] [17] [14] [13] [12] [11] [10] [09] [08] [07] [06] [05] [04] [03] [02]

2005

2005 - 12 - [30] [29] [28] [27] [26] [25] [24] [23] [21] [20] [19] [17] [16] [15] [14] [13] [12] [09] [08] [07] [06] [05] [03] [02] [01]
2005 - 11 - [30] [29] [28] [26] [25] [24] [23] [22] [21] [19] [18] [17] [16] [15] [14] [12] [11] [10] [09] [08] [07] [04] [02] [01]
2005 - 10 - [31] [29] [28] [27] [26] [25] [24] [21] [20] [19] [18] [17] [14] [13] [12] [11] [10] [07] [06] [05] [04] [03]
2005 - 09 - [30] [28] [17] [16] [15] [14] [13] [12] [10] [08] [07] [06] [05] [01]
2005 - 08 - [31] [30] [29] [27] [26] [25] [24] [23] [22] [20] [19] [18] [17] [16] [15] [13] [12] [11] [10] [09] [08] [06] [05] [03] [02] [01]
2005 - 07 - [29] [28] [27] [26] [25] [23] [22] [21] [20] [19] [18] [16] [15] [14] [13] [12] [11] [09] [08] [07] [06] [05] [04] [02] [01]
2005 - 06 - [30] [29] [28] [27] [25] [24] [23] [22] [21] [18] [17] [16] [15] [14] [13] [11] [10] [09] [08] [07] [04] [03] [01]
2005 - 05 - [30] [28] [27] [26] [25] [24] [23] [21] [20] [19] [18] [17] [16] [13] [12] [11] [10] [05] [04] [02]
2005 - 04 - [29] [27] [26] [23] [22] [21] [20] [19] [18] [16] [15] [14] [13] [12] [11] [08] [07] [06] [05] [04] [02] [01]
2005 - 03 - [30] [28] [26] [24] [22] [18] [15] [14] [11] [10] [09] [07] [05] [03]
2005 - 02 - [28] [26] [25] [22] [16] [14] [11] [09] [07] [03] [01]
2005 - 01 - [29] [27] [25] [24] [20] [18] [17] [13] [11] [05] [03]

2004

2004 - 12 - [27] [21] [20] [16] [14] [10] [08] [07] [06] [03] [01]
2004 - 11 - [25] [22] [19] [18] [17] [16] [15] [12] [11] [10] [09] [05] [03] [02] [01]
2004 - 10 - [29] [27] [25] [21] [19] [18] [14] [11] [08] [07] [04] [01]
2004 - 09 - [28] [27] [24] [22] [20] [17] [15] [14] [12]

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