Category: kazakhstan

  • Photo and copyright: European Union.

    On 10 April 2025 Civil Rights Defenders, along with seven other international human rights organizations, commend the commitments made at the EU-Central Asia Summit in Samarkand. We urge Central Asian leaders to prioritize human rights and uphold the civil and political freedoms enshrined in their national constitutions and international treaties. The commitments to peace, security, democracy, and the elevation of relations to a strategic partnership must be matched by concrete actions to protect human rights.

    On Friday, April 4, the Uzbek city of Samarkand hosted the first ever EU – Central Asia Summit where high-level officials – all five regional presidents and European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – discussed economic cooperation and agreed to bring their existing partnership to a new strategic level. At the end of the summit, participants issued a joint declaration that, among others, stated their commitment to freedom of expression and association, creating an enabling environment for civil society and independent media, protection of human rights defenders, as well as to respecting the rights of women and children. According to an official press release, the European Commission promised to invest €12 billion in the region to strengthen transport links and deepen cooperation on critical raw materials, digital connectivity, water, and energy.

    Paragraph 3 of the joint declaration says: “We are committed to cooperate for peace, security, and democracy, to fully respect international law, including the UN Charter and the fundamental principles of respect for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States, within their internationally recognised borders. We emphasised the importance of achieving as soon as possible, a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. We emphasized the need to uphold the principles of the OSCE by the participating States. We reconfirmed the obligation of all States to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force, to respect international humanitarian law and underlined the need for peaceful resolution of conflicts.”

    In paragraph 16, the “EU and Central Asian leaders reiterated that the promotion and protection of rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms is a common fundamental value. Ensuring freedom of expression and association, an enabling environment for civil society and independent media, protection of human rights defenders as well as the respect for the rights of women, the rights of the child, and labor rights remain at the core of EU–Central Asia relations. The EU reiterated its readiness to support efforts in this regard at regional as well as at national level.” 

    Furthermore, in paragraph 15 the “Participants affirmed the need for their continued commitment to enhanced cooperation and the development of new approaches in the joint fight against organised crime, violent extremism, radicalisation, terrorism, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, migrant smuggling, cyber threats, including cybercrime and disinformationas well as addressing Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear risks whilst safeguarding human rights and media freedom [emphasis added].”

    Civil Rights Defenders, International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), Araminta, Freedom Now, Norwegian Helsinki Committee, People in Need, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) welcome these declared commitments and urge the leaders of each Central Asian nation to take immediate steps to fulfill their promises. They should start by releasing from prison all journalists, bloggers, lawyers, human rights defenders, civil society activists, and political opponents who have been prosecuted and convicted on retaliatory and unsubstantiated charges. They should also repeal legislation containing provisions that directly contradict their declared commitment to human rights standards. 

    The Central Asian governments should also end–and establish safeguards to prevent–the misuse of anti-extremism and anti-disinformation policies and security tools to restrict, persecute, and/or criminalize legitimate civil society activity. While enhanced cooperation in the joint fight against organized crime, violent extremism and terrorism, and disinformation are a welcome development, these types of laws and cooperation initiatives have been instrumentalized by the Central Asian governments against legitimate civil society actors, media and political opposition activists, including for imprisonment on lengthy sentences and transnational repression extending to the territory of the European Union. 

    In particular:

    • In Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev should order the release from custody of activist Aigerim Tleuzhanova, political opposition party leader Marat Zhylanbayev, satirist blogger Temirlan Ensebek, and labor rights activist Erzhan Elshibayev among others prosecuted on politically motivated charges, We believe that these individuals were targeted in direct retaliation for exercising their civil and political rights, and authorities have failed to provide any credible evidence to support the allegations levelled against them. Kazakh authorities should repeal or thoroughly revise broadly worded criminal code provisions penalising the involvement in ‘’extremist’’ activities, ‘’incitement’’ to discord and the spread of ‘’false’’ information, which are frequently misused to target critics, including in some of the cases mentioned above. Kazakh authorities should also drop their declared plans to adopt a so-called “foreign agents’” law, cease the public attacks on the LGBTIQ community, and end reprisals against NGOs-recipients of foreign grants.
    • In Kyrgyzstan, it is welcome that President Sadyr Japarov pardoned Temirov Live associated journalist Azamat Ishenbekov this week, although he should not have been imprisoned in the first place. Authorities should also quash the charges against his colleagues convicted on similar charges, releasing Makhabat Tajibek Kyzy  and lifting the probational sentences imposed on Aike Beishekeyeva and Aktilek Kaparov. We believe all four journalists were targeted in retaliation for their critical opinions and independent journalism. Authorities should also release independent journalist Kanyshay Mamyrkulova and drop the criminal charges initiated against her and others in apparent retaliation for social media posts critical of the government. In addition, they should reverse the court ruling that ordered the liquidation of independent news organization Kloop Media and stop pressuring other independent media. They should repeal the law on so-called “foreign representatives” and revoke vaguely worded provisions that prohibit the dissemination of “false’’, defamatory or insulting information, as well as content that ‘’promotes non-traditional sexual relations’’. This legislation severely violates the fundamental freedoms of expression, association, and assembly.
    • In Tajikistan, President Emomali Rakhmon should take immediate steps to release from prison the eight independent journalists Rukhshona Hakimova, Abdusattor Pirmuhammadzoda, Ahmad Ibrohim, Abdullo Ghurbati, Daler Imomali, Khurshed Fozilov, Khushom Gulyam, and Zavqibek Saidamini. Human rights activists and lawyers Ulfatkhonim Mamadshoeva, Buzurgmehr Yorov, Manuchehr Kholiknazarov, and Faromuz Irgashov should also be freed without delay. By imprisoning these individuals the Tajik authorities have cemented a climate of fear among civil society actors – a record that must be reversed. Tajik authorities should also cease its continued crackdown in the Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Region and its systematic use of transnational repression to target government opponents abroad, including in EU countries. Several individuals who were forcibly returned to Tajikistan in  2024 were tortured, arrested and handed lengthy prison sentences after closed trials. 
    • In Turkmenistan, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov should take concrete steps to rectify his government’s extremely poor human rights record, free political prisoners, and allow space for an independent civil society to develop. The government should publicly declare tolerance towards criticism in the media and end wide ranging internet censorship. Authorities should immediately end attacks and harassment of critics of the regime both inside the country and abroad, including veteran human rights defender and journalist Soltan Achilova, who has repeatedly been barred from leaving the country. They should also decriminalize homosexuality while adopting legislation to criminalize domestic violence.  
    • In Uzbekistan, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev should order to quash wrongful convictions and free from prison and retaliatory psychiatric ward lawyer Dauletmurat Tadzhimuratov, activists Nargiz Keldiyorova and Dildora Khakimova and blogger Valijon Kalonov. All these human rights defenders have been targeted with retaliatory prosecution and convicted on unsubstantiated charges for publicly expressing their opinions about the state of affairs in the country. The Uzbek government should also repeal the law on so-called “undesirable foreign persons,” decriminalize male homosexuality, and remove all legal provisions and bureaucratic obstructions that prevent independent civil society groups from engaging in legitimate human rights work.

    We urge the leaders of each Central Asian nation to demonstrate that they have the political will to deliver on their declared commitments made at the Samarkand summit and to respect human rights and civil and political freedoms protected by their national constitutions and international treaties ratified by them. We call on the EU to ensure that the commitments expressed in the joint declaration are followed through and that Central Asian governments are held accountable for violations of their human rights obligations under EU cooperation instruments, including bilateral partnership and cooperation agreements and preferential trade schemes. In line with the EU’s value-based partnership with the Central Asian countries, advancing connectivity, trade, and investment should go hand in hand with efforts to promote concrete progress in human rights and rule of law in these countries. The steps listed above are merely a suggested choice of actions that we urge the Central Asia governments to implement without delay. Much more needs to be done for addressing past and ongoing abuses that respect and protect citizens’ rights and freedoms.

    Signtures

    Civil Rights Defenders

    International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR)

    Araminta,

    Freedom Now

    Norwegian Helsinki Committee

    People in Need

    International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)

    World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Bloc to discuss trade, security and energy with leaders of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan

    The EU is being urged to put human rights centre stage as it begins its first summit with the leaders of central Asia.

    The president of the European Council, António Costa, and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are meeting the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on Friday.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur.

    Uyghurs in Kazakhstan bade farewell to Riza Samedi, a journalist, Uyghur nationalist and influential community leader who died from an illness on Dec. 29 at age 86.

    Samedi, also known as Riza Samed, was a prominent figure in the Uyghur resurgence and independence movements of the late 20th century in Kazakhstan and internationally.

    Uyghurs and Kazakhs alike recalled Samedi with great respect.

    Dolkun Isa, former president of the World Uyghur Congress, an advocacy group, said Samedi was a national leader of the Uyghur people.

    “He was someone who had witnessed the birth of the East Turkestan Republic in 1944 and enjoyed living in our independent country,” Isa said. “Not only did he taste the joy of our independence, but he also suffered under [Chinese] colonization.”

    “He became our leader and educator in passing the spirit of independence to the next generation after fleeing into Central Asia with the family,” he said.

    East Turkestan is the Uyghurs’ preferred name for their homeland, which was absorbed by China in 1949 and today is known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. There were two short-lived independent East Turkestan republics, from 1933-34 and again from 1944-49.

    Riza Samedi speaks at the 6th General Assembly of the World Uyghur Congress in Munich, Germany, November 2017.
    Riza Samedi speaks at the 6th General Assembly of the World Uyghur Congress in Munich, Germany, November 2017.
    (Abdulhakim Idris/Center for Uyghur Studies)

    During a funeral prayer service in Kazakhstan’s capital Almaty, Azad Ibrahimov, head of the city’s Auezov district, told mourners that Samedi made great contributions to the development of Uyghur national media and the Uyghur nationalist movement by exposing China’s atrocities against the mostly Muslim group.

    “The names of national heroes like Riza Samedi will never be forgotten in the hearts of the Uyghurs,” he said.

    Son of a colonel

    Born in 1938 in Ghulja, or Yining in Chinese, Samedi was the eldest son of Ziya Samedi, a prominent writer and a colonel in the East Turkestan armed forces during a period of rebellion against the Chinese government in the mid-20th century.

    After China took over East Turkestan, Ziya Samedi fell victim to a purge of “local nationalists” in 1957 and 1958 and spent a year in a forced labor camp. He later fled with his family to Soviet Kazakhstan in 1961 during a period of heightened tension between China and the Soviet Union.

    Riza Samedi worked as a middle-school teacher in Ghulja. After moving to Almaty, he taught for a couple of years and then worked in Uyghur-language TV and radio broadcasting in the Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan Soviet republics until 1968, according to his sister, Beliqiz Samedi.

    During the next two decades, Samedi worked as a journalist in the Uyghur service at the State Committee of Television and Radio Broadcasting of the Soviet Union in Moscow.

    He also was a member of the Union of Journalists of Kazakhstan and had served as an advisor to the World Uyghur Congress.

    After Samedi retired in 2002, he devoted himself to serving the estimated 2 million Uyghurs who live in Kazakhstan, advocating for Uyghur rights and the preservation of Uyghur culture in the diaspora.

    Beliqiz Samedi recalled that her brother followed in the footsteps of their late father through his work to preserve the Uyghur people’s national identity.

    Riza Samedi (center) shares a meal with other prominent Uyghurs in Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 2024.
    Riza Samedi (center) shares a meal with other prominent Uyghurs in Almaty, Kazakhstan, June 2024.
    (Abdulhakim Idris/Center for Uyghur Studies)

    She said he would often discuss the Uyghur cause and expressed hope about young Uyghurs who lived and studied in Europe and the United States.

    “My brother worked in good places and did a lot of work,” she told Radio Free Asia.

    ‘That day shall come’

    Abdulhakim Idris, executive director of the Center for Uyghur Studies, a Washington-based think tank, interviewed Samedi during a visit to Kazakhstan in June 2024.

    “He was always proud of the young people advocating for Uyghurs on the international stage,” Idris recalled.

    Samedi told him that he encouraged other Uyghurs, especially the young, to never lose hope that the world would rally to the Uyghur cause and gain a renewed understanding of Uyghurs once they formed an independent nation.

    “That day shall come,” Samedi said during the interview. “Therefore, let’s all live with prayer and hope each day knowing that our homeland will be free today or tomorrow.”

    Samedi was active in various groups that advocated in Kazakhstan and other Central Asia countries for a Uyghur homeland, said Kahriman Ghojamberdi, a political analyst and historian who is chief advisor to the World Uyghur Congress.

    “Since Riza grew up in East Turkestan and went to college, he understood the cause to free our homeland well,” Ghojamberdi said. “We learned a lot from him. Therefore, I paid close attention to his opinions.”

    Samedi also organized numerous interviews on Uyghur advocacy topics as a reporter for Kazakhstani radio, he said.

    Abdugopur Kutlukov, Kazakhstan’s honorary writer and a famous poet, said with Samedi’s death, Uyghurs had lost a distinguished individual.

    Deeply affected by his passing, Kutlukov, also born in Ghulja, wrote a poem about Samedi:

    Goodbye, my friend Riza, I’ve lost you,
    As though I’ve lost a wing,
    We’re scattered across the world like threads,
    Is this why we’re born, to feel such sting?

    Tell me, who cries, if not me?
    The sorrow won’t release its hold,
    My cries don’t reach God’s ears,
    No one hears the pain I’ve told.

    No one cares for the refugees’ plight,
    Each day becomes a harder fight.
    Tell me, who cries, if not me?
    Our elders leave, one by one,
    While the rest of us are lost,
    Wandering beneath a fading sun.

    In our homeland, they struggle each day,
    Shot down while seeking love their way.
    Tell me, who cries, if not me?

    Translated by Alim Seytoff for RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Oyghan and Ekrem for RFA Uyghur.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


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  • Singapore’s ST Engineering and Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering (KPE) have signed an agreement to build a new 8×8 amphibious armoured vehicle for the Kazakhstan military, the Singaporean company announced on 6 December. The agreement includes engineering and technical support for the design and production of the new vehicle, based on ST Engineering’s Terrex platform, which it […]

    The post ST Engineering announces 8×8 amphibious vehicle collaboration with Kazakhstan appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.


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  • Ukraine and its regional allies on March 10 assailed reported comments by Pope Francis in which the pontiff suggested opening negotiations with Moscow and used the term “white flag,” while the Vatican later appeared to back off some of the remarks, saying Francis was not speaking about “capitulation.”

    Francis was quoted on March 9 in a partially released interview suggesting Ukraine, facing possible defeat, should have the “courage” to sit down with Russia for peace negotiations, saying there is no shame in waving the “white flag.”

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit out in a Telegram post and in his nightly video address, saying — without mentioning the pope — that “the church should be among the people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”

    Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted more directly on social media, saying, “When it comes to the ‘white flag,’ we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century.”

    Many historians have been critical of the Vatican during World War II, saying Pope Pius XII remained silent as the Holocaust raged. The Vatican has long argued that, at the time, it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities and therefore could not denounce them.

    Kuleba, in his social media post, wrote: “I urge the avoidance of repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.

    “The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations,’” Kuleba said.

    “Our flag is a yellow-and-blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” added Kuleba, who also thanked Francis for his “constant prayers for peace” and said he hoped the pontiff will visit Ukraine, home of some 1 million Catholics.

    Zelenskiy has remained firm in not speaking directly to Russia unless terms of his “peace formula” are reached.

    Ukraine’s terms call for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country’s 1991 post-Soviet borders, and holding Russia accountable for its actions. The Kremlin has rejected such conditions.

    Following criticism of the pope’s reported comments, the head of the Vatican press service, Matteo Bruni, explained that with his words regarding Ukraine, Francis intended to “call for a cease-fire and restore the courage of negotiations,” but did not mean capitulation.

    “The pope uses the image of the white flag proposed by the interviewer to imply an end to hostilities, a truce that is achieved through the courage to begin negotiations,” Bruni said.

    “Elsewhere in the interview…referring to any situation of war, the pope clearly stated: ‘Negotiations are never capitulations,’” Bruni added.

    The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, said Ukraine was “wounded but unconquered.”

    “Believe me, no one would think of giving up. Even where hostilities are taking place today; listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy! Because we know that if Ukraine, God forbid, was at least partially conquered, the line of death would spread,” Shevchuk said at St. George’s Church in New York.

    Andriy Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, told RAI News that “you don’t negotiate with terrorists, with those who are recognized as criminals,” referring to the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin. “No one tried to put Hitler at ease.”

    Ukraine’s regional allies also expressed anger about the pope’s remarks.

    “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on social media.

    Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevichs wrote on social media: “My Sunday morning conclusion: You can’t capitulate to evil, you have to fight it and defeat it, so that evil raises the white flag and surrenders.”

    Alexandra Valkenburg, ambassador and head of the EU Delegation to the Holy See, wrote “Russia…can end this war immediately by respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. EU supports Ukraine and its peace plan.”

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

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  • Ukraine and its regional allies on March 10 assailed reported comments by Pope Francis in which the pontiff suggested opening negotiations with Moscow and used the term “white flag,” while the Vatican later appeared to back off some of the remarks, saying Francis was not speaking about “capitulation.”

    Francis was quoted on March 9 in a partially released interview suggesting Ukraine, facing possible defeat, should have the “courage” to sit down with Russia for peace negotiations, saying there is no shame in waving the “white flag.”

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hit out in a Telegram post and in his nightly video address, saying — without mentioning the pope — that “the church should be among the people. And not 2,500 kilometers away, somewhere, to mediate virtually between someone who wants to live and someone who wants to destroy you.”

    Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted more directly on social media, saying, “When it comes to the ‘white flag,’ we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century.”

    Many historians have been critical of the Vatican during World War II, saying Pope Pius XII remained silent as the Holocaust raged. The Vatican has long argued that, at the time, it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities and therefore could not denounce them.

    Kuleba, in his social media post, wrote: “I urge the avoidance of repeating the mistakes of the past and to support Ukraine and its people in their just struggle for their lives.

    “The strongest is the one who, in the battle between good and evil, stands on the side of good rather than attempting to put them on the same footing and call it ‘negotiations,’” Kuleba said.

    “Our flag is a yellow-and-blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” added Kuleba, who also thanked Francis for his “constant prayers for peace” and said he hoped the pontiff will visit Ukraine, home of some 1 million Catholics.

    Zelenskiy has remained firm in not speaking directly to Russia unless terms of his “peace formula” are reached.

    Ukraine’s terms call for the withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine, restoring the country’s 1991 post-Soviet borders, and holding Russia accountable for its actions. The Kremlin has rejected such conditions.

    Following criticism of the pope’s reported comments, the head of the Vatican press service, Matteo Bruni, explained that with his words regarding Ukraine, Francis intended to “call for a cease-fire and restore the courage of negotiations,” but did not mean capitulation.

    “The pope uses the image of the white flag proposed by the interviewer to imply an end to hostilities, a truce that is achieved through the courage to begin negotiations,” Bruni said.

    “Elsewhere in the interview…referring to any situation of war, the pope clearly stated: ‘Negotiations are never capitulations,’” Bruni added.

    The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Svyatoslav Shevchuk, said Ukraine was “wounded but unconquered.”

    “Believe me, no one would think of giving up. Even where hostilities are taking place today; listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy! Because we know that if Ukraine, God forbid, was at least partially conquered, the line of death would spread,” Shevchuk said at St. George’s Church in New York.

    Andriy Yurash, Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, told RAI News that “you don’t negotiate with terrorists, with those who are recognized as criminals,” referring to the Russian leadership and President Vladimir Putin. “No one tried to put Hitler at ease.”

    Ukraine’s regional allies also expressed anger about the pope’s remarks.

    “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on social media.

    Lithuanian President Edgars Rinkevichs wrote on social media: “My Sunday morning conclusion: You can’t capitulate to evil, you have to fight it and defeat it, so that evil raises the white flag and surrenders.”

    Alexandra Valkenburg, ambassador and head of the EU Delegation to the Holy See, wrote “Russia…can end this war immediately by respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. EU supports Ukraine and its peace plan.”

    With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

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  • The party of jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, which according to still incomplete results has won most mandates in the February 8 elections, said it was ready to form a government amid warnings by the nuclear-armed country’s powerful military that politicians should put the people’s interests above their own.

    The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has so far announced the winners of 253 of the 265 contested parliamentary seats amid a slow counting process hampered by the interruption of mobile service.

    According to those results, independents backed by Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI) won 92 seats, while former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) garnered 71, and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) obtained 54 mandates. The remainder are spread among other small parties and candidates.

    Both Khan and Sharif declared victory.

    As results appeared to point to a hung parliament, PTI’s acting Chairman Gohar Ali Khan on February 10 told a news conference in Islamabad that the party aimed at forming a government as candidates backed by it had won the most seats.

    Khan also announced that if complete results were not released by February 10 in the evening, the PTI intended to stage a peaceful protest on February 11.

    Third-placed PPP, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a former foreign minister who is the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, could play kingmaker in case of talks to form a coalition government.

    Sharif said on February 9 that he was sending his younger brother and former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as an envoy to approach the PPP and other political parties for coalition talks.

    The elections were held in a highly polarized environment as Khan, a former cricket superstar, and his party were kept out of the election. Khan is currently in prison after he was convicted of graft and leaking state secrets. He also saw his marriage annulled by a court.

    Earlier on February 10, the chief of Pakistan’s powerful military urged the country’s political class to set aside rivalries and work for the good of the people.

    “The nation needs stable hands and a healing touch to move on from the politics of anarchy and polarization, which does not suit a progressive country of 250 million people,” General Syed Asim Munir said in a statement.

    “Political leadership and their workers should rise above self-interests and synergize efforts in governing and serving the people, which is perhaps the only way to make democracy functional and purposeful,” Munir said.

    The military has run Pakistan for nearly half its history since partition from India in 1947 and it still wields huge power and influence.

    The February 8 vote took place amid rising political tensions and an upsurge of violence that prompted authorities to deploy more than 650,000 army, paramilitary, and police personnel across the country.

    Despite the beefed-up security presence, violence continued even after the election. On February 10, Pashtun candidate Mohsen Dawar
    was shot and wounded in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal district.

    Crisis-hit Pakistan has been struggling with runaway inflation while Islamabad scrambles to repay more than $130 billion in foreign debt.

    Reported irregularities during the February 8 poll prompted the United States, Britain, and the European Union to voice concerns about the way the vote was conducted and to urge an investigation.

    Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on February 10 rejected the criticism.

    PTI was banned from participating in the vote because the ECP said it had failed to properly register as a party. Its candidates then decided to run as independents after the Supreme Court and the ECP said they couldn’t use the party symbol — a cricket bat. Parties in the country use symbols to help illiterate voters find them on the ballots.

    Yet the PTI-backed independents have emerged as the largest block in the new parliament. Under Pakistani law, they must join a political party within 72 hours after their election victory is officially confirmed. They can join the PTI if it takes the required administrative steps to be cleared and approved as a party by the ECP.

    Khan, 71, was prime minister from 2018 to 2022. He still enjoys huge popularity, but his political future and return to the political limelight is unclear.

    With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and AP


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

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  • KYIV — Ukrainian officials on January 27 said Russia had intensified attacks in the past 24 hours, with a commander saying the sides had battled through “50 combat clashes” in the past day near Ukraine’s Tavria region.

    Meanwhile, Kyiv and Moscow continued to dispute the circumstances surrounding the January 24 crash of a Russian military transport plane that the Kremlin claimed was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war.

    Kyiv said it has no proof POWs were aboard and has not confirmed its forces shot down the plane.

    Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine

    RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

    General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the Ukrainian commander in the Tavria zone in the Zaporizhzhya region, said Russian forces had “significantly increased” the number of offensive and assault operations over the past two days.

    “For the second day in a row, the enemy has conducted 50 combat clashes daily,” he wrote on Telegram.

    “Also, the enemy has carried out 100 air strikes in the operational zone of the Tavria Joint Task Force within seven days,” he said, adding that 230 Russian-launched drones had been “neutralized or destroyed” over the past day in the area.

    Battlefield claims on either side cannot immediately be confirmed.

    Earlier, the Ukrainian military said 98 combat clashes took place between Ukrainian troops and the invading Russian army over the past 24 hours.

    “There are dead and wounded among the civilian populations,” the Ukrianian military’s General Staff said in its daily update, but did not provide further details about the casualties.

    According to the General Staff, Russian forces launched eight missile and four air strikes, and carried out 78 attacks from rocket-salvo systems on Ukrainian troop positions and populated areas. Iranian-made Shahed drones and Iskander ballistic missiles were used in the attacks, it said.

    A number of “high-rise residential buildings, schools, kindergartens, a shopping center, and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed or damaged” in the latest Russian strikes, the bulletin said.

    “More than 120 settlements came under artillery fire in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolayiv regions,” according to the daily update.

    The General Staff also reported that Ukrainian defenders repelled dozens of Russian assaults in eight directions, including Avdiyivka, Bakhmut, Maryinka, and Kupyansk in the eastern Donetsk region.

    Meanwhile, Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, said it remained unclear what happened in the crash of the Russian Il-76 that the Kremlin claimed was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were killed along with nine crew members.

    The Kremlin said the military transport plane was shot down by a Ukrainian missile despite the fact that Russian forces had alerted Kyiv to the flight’s path.

    Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told RFE/RL that it had not received either a written or verbal request to secure the airspace where the plane went down.

    The situation with the crash of the aircraft “is not yet fully understood,” Budanov said.

    “It is necessary to determine what happened – unfortunately, neither side can fully answer that yet.”

    Russia “of course, has taken the position of blaming Ukraine for everything, despite the fact that there are a number of facts that are inconsistent with such a position,” he added.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted Ukraine shot down the plane and said an investigation was being carried out, with a report to be made in the upcoming days.

    In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the creation of a second body to assist businesses in the war-torn country.

    Speaking in his nightly video address late on January 26, Zelenskiy said the All-Ukraine Economic Platform would help businesses overcome the challenges posed by Russia’s nearly two-year-old invasion.

    On January 23, Zelenskiy announced the formation of a Council for the Support of Entrepreneurship, which he said sought to strengthen the country’s economy and clarify issues related to law enforcement agencies. Decrees creating both bodies were published on January 26.

    Ukraine’s economy has collapsed in many sectors since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Kyiv heavily relies on international aid from its Western partnes.

    The Voice of America reported that the United States vowed to promote at the international level a peace formula put forward by Zelenskiy.

    VOA quoted White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby as saying that Washington “is committed to the policy of supporting initiatives emanating from the leadership of Ukraine.”

    Zelenskiy last year presented his 10-point peace formula that includes the withdrawal of Russian forces and the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, among other things.

    With reporting by Reuters and dpa


    This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Since 2014, millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other minorities have been locked up in China and subjected to torture and forced labour. Some of those freed talk about trying to rebuild their lives in neighbouring Kazakhstan

    • Photography by Robin Tutenges
    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Kazakhstan’s Air Defense Forces will receive 6 new Su-30SM multi-role fighter jets at the beginning of the next year, said Colonel Yerzhan Nildibaev, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Air Defense Forces for armaments – Head of the Main Armaments Directorate. He called the Su-30SM the “best multi-role combat aircraft in the world”, commenting on the report […]

    The post Kazakhstan Waits for New Sukhoi Fighter Jets in 2024 appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Recently, the White House has been intensifying its diplomatic work towards Kazakhstan, aimed at separating Astana from Moscow. Shortly after the C5+1 Summit in Washington, which was attended by the Presidents of the United States, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu visited Astana to conduct an Enhanced Strategic Partnership Dialogue. At the same time, the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev himself is also not sitting idle. He recently flew to China for talks with Xi Jinping, then met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Why is such close attention being paid to the post-Soviet republic and what are the reasons for the intensification of its foreign policy activities? Why now?

    The simple answer is that the United States is making every effort to lure away from Russia one of its key allies in the region, while Astana, which has recently demonstrated a willingness to distance itself from Moscow, is fully aware of its advantageous geopolitical location and will be looking at who can offer it more favorable conditions for cooperation. A more complicated answer: Kazakhstan may have sensitive information about American President Joe Biden and may be testing the waters for its most profitable use. Given the upcoming US elections, it is safe to assume that all three countries are extremely interested in what President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has to say.

    To better understand the situation, we need to return to the events of 2020, when the son of the US President Hunter Biden carelessly left his laptop at a computer shop. The leaked information revealed many dark secrets about the Biden family’s shady money laundering activities. Kazakhstan played an important role in this back at 2010s. Hunter Biden’s “track record” in Kazakhstan includes lobbying the interests of Chinese corporations, money laundering, receiving “gifts” in the form of material assets and large sums in offshore accounts, as well as cooperation with two of the richest people in Kazakhstan, Kenes Rakishev  and Karim Massimov, who at that time served as Chairman of the National Security Committee of the republic. Given the well-known high level of corruption in the post-Soviet republics, we can safely say that not only these people participated in the dark schemes of Hunter Biden, but also that behind them, most likely, stood influential representatives of the political establishment of Kazakhstan, who now may want to take the lead and sell the information profitably, under the agreement that they themselves will not appear in it.

    It is also no coincidence that Karim Massimov has been in prison for more than a year. Thus, President Tokayev, who at that time already held high government positions, could either silenced the bearer of compromising information, or, conversely, could have long ago pulled out dirty secrets on the family of the American leader.

    Be that as it may, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev knows about Hunter Biden’s activities in Kazakhstan more than any media outlet, and can use this information as a leverage on the White House. Any new piece of information about the dark schemes of the Biden family could become decisive in the ongoing investigation against the President and lead to his impeachment. We can safely predict that Tokayev will try to get most from any of the parties interested in the information.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a massive public diplomacy op launched at the recent G20 summit in New Delhi, complete with a memorandum of understanding signed on 9 September.

    Players include the US, India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the EU, with a special role for the latter’s top three powers Germany, France, and Italy. It’s a multimodal railway project, coupled with trans-shipments and with ancillary digital and electricity roads extending to Jordan and Israel.

    If this walks and talks like the collective west’s very late response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched 10 years ago and celebrating a Belt and Road Forum in Beijing next month, that’s because it is. And yes, it is, above all, yet another American project to bypass China, to be claimed for crude electoral purposes as a meager foreign policy “success.”

    No one among the Global Majority remembers that the Americans came up with their own Silk Road plan way back in 2010. The concept came from the State Department’s Kurt Campbell and was sold by then-Secretary Hillary Clinton as her idea. History is implacable, it came down to nought.

    And no one among the Global Majority remembers the New Silk Road plan peddled by Poland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in the early 2010s, complete with four troublesome trans-shipments in the Black Sea and the Caspian. History is implacable, this too came down to nought.

    In fact, very few among the Global Majority remember the $40 trillion US-sponsored Build Back Better World (BBBW, or B3W) global plan rolled out with great fanfare just two summers ago, focusing on “climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.”

    A year later, at a G7 meeting, B3W had already shrunk to a $600 billion infrastructure-and-investment project. Of course, nothing was built. History really is implacable, it came down to nought.

    The same fate awaits IMEC, for a number of very specific reasons.

    Map of The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)

    Pivoting to a black void 

    The whole IMEC rationale rests on what writer and former Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar deliciously described as “conjuring up the Abraham Accords by the incantation of a Saudi-Israeli tango.”

    This tango is Dead On Arrival; even the ghost of Piazzolla can’t revive it. For starters, one of the principals – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman – has made it clear that Riyadh’s priorities are a new, energized Chinese-brokered relationship with Iran, with Turkiye, and with Syria after its return to the Arab League.

    Moreover, both Riyadh and its Emirati IMEC partner share immense trade, commerce, and energy interests with China, so they’re not going to do anything to upset Beijing.

    At face value, IMEC proposes a joint drive by G7 and BRICS 11 nations. That’s the western method of seducing eternally-hedging India under Modi and US-allied Saudi Arabia and the UAE to its agenda.

    Its real intention, however, is not only to undermine BRI, but also the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), in which India is a major player alongside Russia and Iran.

    The game is quite crude and really quite obvious: a transportation corridor conceived to bypass the top three vectors of real Eurasia integration – and BRICS members China, Russia, and Iran – by dangling an enticing Divide and Rule carrot that promises Things That Cannot Be Delivered.

    The American neoliberal obsession at this stage of the New Great Game is, as always, all about Israel. Their goal is to make Haifa port viable and turn it into a key transportation hub between West Asia and Europe. Everything else is subordinated to this Israeli imperative.

    IMEC, in principle, will transit across West Asia to link India to Eastern and Western Europe – selling the fiction that India is a Global Pivot state and a Convergence of Civilizations.

    Nonsense. While India’s great dream is to become a pivot state, its best shot would be via the already up-and-running INTSC, which could open markets to New Delhi from Central Asia to the Caucasus. Otherwise, as a Global Pivot state, Russia is way ahead of India diplomatically, and China is way ahead in trade and connectivity.

    Comparisons between IMEC and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are futile. IMEC is a joke compared to this BRI flagship project: the $57.7 billion plan to build a railway over 3,000 km long linking Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar in the Arabian Sea, which will connect to other overland BRI corridors heading toward Iran and Turkiye.

    This is a matter of national security for China. So bets can be made that the leadership in Beijing will have some discreet and serious conversations with the current fifth-columnists in power in Islamabad, before or during the Belt and Road Forum, to remind them of the relevant geostrategic, geoeconomic, and investment Facts.

    So, what’s left for Indian trade in all of this? Not much. They already use the Suez Canal, a direct, tested route. There’s no incentive to even start contemplating being stuck in black voids across the vast desert expanses surrounding the Persian Gulf.

    One glaring problem, for example, is that almost 1,100 km of tracks are “missing” from the railway from Fujairah in the UAE to Haifa, 745 km “missing” from Jebel Ali in Dubai to Haifa, and 630 km “missing” from the railway from Abu Dhabi to Haifa.

    When all the missing links are added up, there’s over 3,000 km of railway still to be built. The Chinese, of course, can do this for breakfast and on a dime, but they are not part of this game. And there’s no evidence the IMEC gang plans to invite them.

    All eyes on Syunik 

    In the War of Transportation Corridors charted in detail for The Cradle in June 2022, it becomes clear that intentions rarely meet reality. These grand projects are all about logistics, logistics, logistics – of course, intertwined with the three other key pillars: energy and energy resources, labor and manufacturing, and market/trade rules.

    Let’s examine a Central Asian example. Russia and three Central Asian “stans” – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – are launching a multimodal Southern Transportation Corridor which will bypass Kazakhstan.

    Why? After all, Kazakhstan, alongside Russia, is a key member of both the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

    The reason is because this new corridor solves two key problems for Russia that arose with the west’s sanctions hysteria. It bypasses the Kazakh border, where everything going to Russia is scrutinized in excruciating detail. And a significant part of the cargo may now be transferred to the Russian port of Astrakhan in the Caspian.

    So Astana, which under western pressure has played a risky hedging game on Russia, may end up losing the status of a full-fledged transport hub in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region. Kazakhstan is also part of BRI; the Chinese are already very much interested in the potential of this new corridor.

    In the Caucasus, the story is even more complex, and once again, it’s all about Divide and Rule.

    Two months ago, Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan committed to building a single railway from Iran and its ports in the Persian Gulf through Azerbaijan, to be linked to the Russian-Eastern Europe railway system.

    This is a railway project on the scale of the Trans-Siberian – to connect Eastern Europe with Eastern Africa and South Asia, bypassing the Suez Canal and European ports. The INSTC on steroids, in fact.

    Guess what happened next? A provocation in Nagorno-Karabakh, with the deadly potential of involving not only Armenia and Azerbaijan but also Iran and Turkiye.

    Tehran has been crystal clear on its red lines: it will never allow a defeat of Armenia, with direct participation from Turkiye, which fully supports Azerbaijan.

    Add to the incendiary mix are joint military exercises with the US in Armenia – which happens to be a member of the Russian-led CSTO – cast, for public consumption, as one of those seemingly innocent “partnership” NATO programs.

    This all spells out an IMEC subplot bound to undermine INTSC. Both Russia and Iran are fully aware of the former’s endemic weaknesses: political trouble between several participants, those “missing links” of track, and all important infrastructure still to be built.

    Turkish Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, will never give up the Zangezur corridor across Syunik, the south Armenian province, which was envisaged by the 2020 armistice, linking Azerbaijan to Turkiye via the Azeri enclave of Nakhitchevan – that will run through Armenian territory.

    Baku did threaten to attack southern Armenia if the Zangezur corridor was not facilitated by Yerevan. So Syunik is the next big unresolved deal in this riddle. Tehran, it must be noted, will go no holds barred to prevent a Turkish-Israeli-NATO corridor cutting Iran off from Armenia, Georgia, the Black Sea, and Russia. That would be the reality if this NATO-tinted coalition grabs Syunik.

    Today, Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev meet in the Nakhchivan enclave between Turkiye, Armenia, and Iran to start a gas pipeline and open a military production complex.

    The Sultan knows that Zangezur may finally allow Turkiye to be linked to China via a corridor that will transit the Turkic world, in Azerbaijan and the Caspian. This would also allow the collective west to go even bolder on Divide and Rule against Russia and Iran.

    Is the IMEC another far-fetched western fantasy? The place to watch is Syunik.

  • Originally published at The Cradle.
  • This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The United Nation’s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, published an exhaustive investigation this week into human rights abuses at Guantánamo Bay. Following a historic visit to the detention center and interviews with current and former detainees, victims of the 9/11 attacks, and human rights lawyers, the report details delayed justice for the victims of terrorist attacks and ongoing injustice for the victims of torture.

    At the core of the report is the problem of inexplicable indefinite detention. “Arbitrariness pervades the entirety of the Guantánamo detention infrastructure — rendering detainees vulnerable to human rights abuse and contributing to conditions, practices, or circumstances that lead to arbitrary detention,” the report says. Life beyond Guantánamo, for some men, is just another Guantánamo. Those who cannot be repatriated are instead sent to a “third” country like Kazakhstan, where former detainees have been met with more arbitrary detention, Ní Aoláin found.

    The special rapporteur highlighted Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates as two countries of “egregious” concern where men have been sent to another form of prison. “In Kazakhstan former detainees effectively remain under house arrest and are unable to live a normal and dignified life due to the secondary security measures put in place post transfer,” she wrote. In the UAE, Ní Aoláin found “multiple former detainees were subject to arbitrary detention and torture, and one remains detained in incommunicado detention.”

    The U.N. investigation found that the men released from Guantánamo in resettlement deals have not been given proper legal status by their host countries in 30 percent of documented cases. This lack of asylum risks “precluding them and their families from access to certain public benefits, health care, education, as well as foreign travel, or a path to citizenship, all of which are fundamental entitlements under international human rights law.”

    Early this year, an investigation by The Intercept revealed that former Guantánamo prisoner Sabri al-Qurashi had been left without legal status since his relocation from Guantánamo to Kazakhstan in late 2014. Over nearly a decade in Kazakhstan, his treatment has only gotten worse, and he has become increasingly desperate. “I have no official status, no ID card, no right to work or education, and no right to see my family,” al-Qurashi said. Without a basic ID, he is unable to send or receive money, packages, or mail. When he wants to leave his apartment, he must call the Red Crescent office and ask for his assigned chaperone to accompany him. Since being freed, he has not been allowed to reunite with his family or his wife in Yemen, in conflict with the State Department’s negotiated resettlement deal, which was supposed to provide stability and possible family reunification.

    “You have no rights,” al-Qurashi said he was told by Kazakh authorities. He was not allowed to press charges against a man who attacked him in the street, leaving him with permanent facial paralysis.

    Now Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna, the only other former Guantánamo prisoner in Kazakhstan who is still alive, has come forward about his living conditions. “Soon, I will complete 10 years under the arbitrariness of the Kazakh government in a remote city for no reason,” he told The Intercept. He confirmed that he, too, has never been given documentation of residence, an ID, or his passport. “They treat us as if we were criminals who entered the country without their choice,” Khanayna said. Both al-Qurashi and Khanayna told The Intercept that Kazakh officials threatened to send them back to Yemen. “We were handed over by the American government to the militias of Kazakhstan,” Khanayna said. “Not a government that has international law or a law that protects the citizens.”

    The U.N. report calls for the situation of the men “arbitrarily detained” in Kazakhstan, the UAE, and any other country with a “serious violation of human rights” to be “urgently addressed.” The U.S. should facilitate their resettlement again in a new host country, Ní Aoláin argues.

    “There is a legal and moral obligation for the U.S. government to use all of its diplomatic and legal resources to facilitate (re)transfer of these men, with meaningful assurance and support to other countries,” she concludes.

    A State Department representative previously told The Intercept that the U.S. government does not agree with the characterization that it has a “legal and moral” obligation to the resettled detainees. “Once security assurances have expired, and pending any specific renegotiation of assurances, it largely falls to the discretion of the host country to determine what security measures they continue to implement,” Vincent Picard said when asked for comment on the former detainees in Kazakhstan.

    As al-Qurashi and Khanayna have been stuck in stateless purgatory for nearly a decade, some of the recommendations of the U.N. report come far too late. The report strongly recommends that for all resettlements and repatriations, “a formal and effective follow-up system be established as part of the remedial obligations owed by the U.S. government.” Had a system like that been in place when they were transferred, the Guantánamo detainees in Kazakhstan could have received some assistance. In 2015, they told VICE News that their mistreatment began as soon as they stepped off the plane in the former Soviet country.

    “This was a mistake by the Americans in the beginning, and the Americans will not be able to change our situation inside this country,” Khanayna told The Intercept. “They only have to get us out of here.” He said he would prefer to be transferred to an Arab country like Qatar because it has a reputation of treating Guantánamo prisoners well.

    “The Kazakh government is a criminal government. It has treated us like animals,” al-Qurashi said in response to the new U.N. findings. “I’m hurting from my heart.”



    Join The Conversation

    This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Elise Swain.


  • This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.



  • After publishing the first two editions of the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man trilogy, I was invited to speak at global summits. I met with heads of state and their top advisors from many countries. Two particularly significant venues were conferences in the summer of 2017 in Russia and Kazakhstan, where I joined an array of speakers that included major corporate CEOs, government and NGO heads such as UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and (before he invaded Ukraine) Russian President Vladimir Putin. I was asked to speak on the need to end an unsustainable economic system that’s consuming and polluting itself into extinction — a Death Economy — and replace it with a regenerative one that was beginning to evolve — a Life Economy.

    When I left for that trip, I felt encouraged. But something else happened.

    In talking with leaders who had been involved in the development of China’s New Silk Road (officially, the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI), I learned that an innovative, potent, and dangerous strategy was being implemented by China’s economic hit men (EHMs). It began to seem impossible to stop a country that in a few decades had pulled itself from the ashes of Mao’s Cultural Revolution to become a dominant world power and a major contributor to the Death Economy.

    During my time as an economic hit man in the 1970s, I learned that two of the most important tools of the US EHM strategy are:

    1. Divide and conquer, and
    2. Neoliberal economics.

    US EHMs maintain that the world is divided into the good guys (America and its allies) and the bad guys (the Soviet Union/Russia, China, and other Communist nations), and we try to convince people around the world that if they don’t accept neoliberal economics they’ll be doomed to remain “undeveloped” and impoverished forever.

    Neoliberal policies include austerity programs that cut taxes for the rich and wages and social services for everyone else, reduce government regulations, and privatize public-sector businesses and sell them to foreign (US) investors — all of which support “free” markets that favor transnational corporations. Neoliberal advocates promote the perception that money will “trickle down” from the corporations and elites to the rest of the population. However, in truth, these policies almost always cause greater inequality.

    Although the US EHM strategy has been successful in the short term at helping corporations control resources and markets in many countries, its failures have become increasingly obvious. America’s wars in the Middle East (while neglecting much of the rest of the world), the tendency of one Washington administration to break agreements made by previous ones, the inability of Republicans and Democrats to compromise, the wanton destruction of environments, and the exploitation of resources create doubts and often cause resentment.

    China has been quick to take advantage.

    Xi Jinping became president of China in 2013 and immediately began campaigning in Africa and Latin America. He and his EHMs emphasized that by rejecting neoliberalism and developing its own model, China had accomplished the seemingly impossible. It had experienced an average annual economic growth rate of nearly 10 percent for three decades and elevated more than 700 million people out of extreme poverty. No other country had ever done anything even remotely approaching this. China presented itself as a model for rapid economic success at home and it made major modifications to the EHM strategy abroad.

    In addition to rejecting neoliberalism, China promoted the perception that it was ending the divide-and-conquer tactic. The New Silk Road was cast as a vehicle for uniting the world in a trading network that, it claimed, would end global poverty. Latin American and African countries were told that, through Chinese-built ports, highways, and railroads, they would be connected to countries on every continent. This was a significant departure from the bilateralism of colonial powers and the US EHM strategy.

    Whatever one thinks of China, whatever its real intent, and despite recent setbacks, it’s impossible not to recognize that China’s domestic successes and its modifications to the EHM strategy impress much of the world.

    However, there’s a downside. The New Silk Road may be uniting countries that were once divided, but it’s doing so under China’s autocratic government — one that suppresses self-evaluation and criticism. Recent events have reminded the world about the dangers of such a government.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers an example of how a tyrannical administration can suddenly alter the course of history.

    It’s important to keep in mind that rhetoric around China’s modifications to the EHM strategy disguises the fact that China is using the same basic tactics as those employed by the US. Regardless of who implements this strategy, it’s exploiting resources, expanding inequality, burying countries in debt, harming all but a few elites, causing climate change, and worsening other crises that threaten our planet. In other words, it’s promoting a Death Economy that’s killing us.

    The EHM strategy, whether implemented by the US or China, must end. It’s time to replace the Death Economy based on short-term profits for the few with a Life Economy that’s based on long-term benefits for all people and nature.

    Taking action to usher in a Life Economy requires:

    1. Promoting economic activities that pay people to clean up pollution, regenerate destroyed environments, recycle, and develop technologies that do not ravage the planet;
    2. Supporting businesses that do the above. As consumers, workers, owners and/or managers, each of us can promote the Life Economy;
    3. Recognizing that all people have the same needs of clean air and water, productive soils, good nutrition, adequate housing, community, and love. Despite the efforts of governments to convince us otherwise, there’s no “them” and “us;” we’re all in this together;
    4. Ignoring and, when appropriate, denouncing propaganda and conspiracy theories aimed at dividing us from other countries, races, and cultures; and
    5. Realizing that the enemy is not another country, but rather the perceptions, actions, and institutions that support an EHM strategy and a Death Economy.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Commission to focus on detention of journalist and political leader Zhanbolat Mamai after nationwide protests

    The state of human rights in the vast, mineral-rich central Asian Republic of Kazakhstan, including the continued detention of opposition leaders, is to be formally examined by senior UK parliamentarians including the former director of public prosecutions Lord MacDonald.

    He will lead an independent investigation into the detention and treatment of Zhanbolat Mamai, the leader of the unregistered opposition Democratic party in Kazakhstan.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering (KPE), the joint venture between the global aerospace and technology business, Paramount Group and one of Kazakhstan’s leading defence and engineering companies, Kazpetromash, has announced its latest delivery of Arlan 4×4 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) to the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in accordance with that nation’s State Defence […]

    The post Kazakhstan Paramount Engineering (KPE) Delivers New Batch of Locally Manufactured Armoured Vehicles appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Urgent protection for minority groups facing increased repression needed in crisis connected to escalating clashes across central Asian ex-Soviet region, say human rights groups

    Parents of men killed by Tajikistan forces have called on the international community to step in and urgently protect ethnic groups being targeted by the Tajik regime.

    In a rare interview, families from the Pamiri ethnic minority have demanded that soldiers who killed their sons be brought to justice and urged the UN to prevent a new phase of conflict in Tajikistan, a landlocked country in central Asia.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • On January 2nd, protests erupted in the city of Zhanaozen in western Kazakhstan that have since spread across the country. Over 160 people have been killed, including at least 18 police officers, with hundreds more wounded. The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets depicted the violence as a result of the doubling of fuel prices and unhappiness with political authoritarianism and corruption. Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has been widely condemned for carrying out large-scale human rights abuses, with Russian backing. In most media coverage, including even in alternative media, Tokyaev is depicted as the bad guy, with Vladimir Putin. However, Tokayev’s statement about criminals and murderers leading the protests is actually true.

    The post NED Provided $1.2 Million To Help Kazakhstan Spark A Color Revolution appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Bill Browder, who pushed for Magnitsky law, says anti-corruption laws should be used in response to deaths of at least 164 protesters

    One of the architects of the UK’s updated sanctions legislation has called for the government and crime agencies to target the wealth of the Kazakhstani elite following the deaths of at least 164 people during unrest.

    Bill Browder, an American investor turned campaigner, said the British government could use anti-corruption legislation to target the rulers of Kazakhstan on the grounds of human rights abuses.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Kazakhstan reminds of Armenia (September 2015), also energy price increases, Georgia (April 2009), opposition attempting to force pro-Russian President Mikheil Saakashvili, from power; and even to some extent of Ukraine (2014) – Maiden riots supposedly because then President Viktor Yanukovych, lured into negotiations with Europe for an association agreement with the European Union, behind which was – who else – NATO. The majority of Ukrainians had no idea about these ongoing negotiations and their background. So, the riots were planned by long hand and had nothing to do with the short-cut EU negotiations. Talks were eventually interrupted when Yanukovych received assurances from Russia for a “better deal”.

    That’s when hell broke out on 21 February 2014 and the Maidan massacre took place. Its violent destruction was disproportionate to the cause. Western hired mercenaries were behind the merciless killing. The Maidan massacre murdered some 130 people, including some 18 policemen. That’s when it became clear – another Color Revolution was being instigated by the west – and always, but always with NATO in the back.  NATO’s goal was setting up one or several bases in Ukraine, the closer to Moscow, the better.

    Just for the record, the 1991 agreement between Europe and the new Russia, stipulated that there would be no new NATO bases further to the east (of Berlin), was never respected by the west. That’s why President Putin is drawing red lines, and rightly so.

    Perhaps, one of the first such Color Revolutions in recent history was Serbia, when in early 2000 Serbian youth chanted “Slobo, Save Serbia! Slobo Save Serbia!”. Later that year, a “reform-minded” foreign-funded and trained group of young people infiltrated the Serbian pro-Milosevic youth and brought Milosevic, the president loved by most Serbs, to fall in October 2000. He was arrested immediately shipped to the ICC prison in The Hague, where he awaited trial for highest treason and crimes against humanity, which he did not commit.

    His lawyers accumulated enough proof for Milosevic to demonstrate that the west was behind this Color Revolution and, indeed, the total dismantling of former Yugoslavia. If these documents would become known to the Court, the ICC, one of the most important interferences and destruction of a country in recent history would shed an irrevocable light on the crimes of the west, at that time led by President Clinton et al. So, Milosevic had to be “neutralized’. On March 11, 2006, he was found dead in his prison cell, a so-called suicide. This, despite the fact that since June 2001, he was on constant suicide watch.

    Well, these are the stories of Armenia, Georgia and Serbia, but back to Kazakhstan, which resembles in many details these preceding so-called Color Revolutions. NATO having been unsuccessful under Russia’s strict red line – to advance further toward Moscow in Ukraine, or before in Belarus — is trying now on the southern front, with Kazakhstan.

    This is clearly an attempted coup, no longer just protests about a gas price hike. It was engineered by the west – see this interview on the Kazakhstan crisis of Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos with Kevork Almassian (video 46 min. 6 January 2022):

    No chance of success with this new coup attempt – just more propaganda for the west. President Putin will never allow these former Soviet republics to slide into the power base of the west, of NATO, especially now, since it is well known that over 90% of the population of all these former Soviet Republics want to stay firmly in Russia’s orbit.

    The repeated protest patterns in Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, and now in Kazakhstan are clearly indicative of western / NATO pressure to destabilize Russia and, ideally, so they keep dreaming since WWII – bring Russia into the “western influence base” – call it slavehood. In several of these cases the base reason for riots were massive energy price hikes, were just a pretext to heavy violent interference by western mercenaries under the guidance of NATO.

    Never to forget NATO is always the power base behind these moves, because the end game is one or several NATO bases in the countries they are trying to putsch. Yet, it doesn’t seem to be very smart, as the west ought to know that none of these former Soviet Republics will betray Russia – almost all the people, including all the higher-level politicians, want to remain firmly in Russia’s zone of influence. Kiev was an exception. Kiev since WWII has been a Nazi stronghold, something that doesn’t apply to the rest of Ukraine.

    In Kazakhstan, after what appears as local rather peaceful riots, violent elements were introduced from “outside”, in the form of well-trained almost para-military protesters, out to kill. It is what has become known as an attempted “Color Revolution”.

    In Kazakhstan the death toll far exceeds 30, including 18 policemen, at least two of whom were decapitated. Hundreds have been injured. While according to Kazakh President Tokayev, constitutional order was largely restored last Friday, 7 January, unrest continues and nearly 4000 people were arrested. The extreme violence took over government buildings and burnt them down; the airport was occupied. The level of violence was way disproportionate for a gas price hike. Clearly other motives are at stake.

    The vast majority of the 19 million Kazakhs have not taken to the streets, because of the gas price increase, which was not as dramatic as the western main stream media has you believe. The majority lives in rural areas and avoids violence.

    These latest Kazakh upheavals could also be called a below-the-belt NATO approach to destabilize Russia, since NATO seems to have failed in Ukraine. In other words, undermining Russia’s position on Ukraine.

    During the weekend, China’s President Xi Jinping called Kazakh President Tokayev, hinting at US interference, assuring Tokayev that China is backing Russia. He is also pledging direct support to Kazakhstan. See this Xi Jinping Calls Kazakh Pres Tokayev, Hints at US Interference, Backs Russia, Pledges Support

    Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on Friday. Peacekeepers from Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan were deployed to Kazakhstan earlier last week. President Tokayev was saying they would stay “for a limited period of time” to support the local security forces. Indeed, this morning, January 11, President Tokayev has declared the CSTO mission completed and is discussing with the troops their repatriation.

    Russia’s Ministry of Defense later clarified that the CSTO forces have also been tasked with the protection of important facilities and key infrastructure and were not supposed to participate in “operational and combat” activities.

    The EU, a typical undecided hypocritical agent, also offered the bloc’s assistance to help resolve the crisis with several countries calling on both the protesters and government forces to refrain from violence.

    Yeah, right: calling on both parties to refrain from violence, when, in fact, the violent element was introduced clearly by NATO members, most of whom are Europeans. Once again, the trustworthiness of Europe is down in the pits. All it will do is appease some ignorant western, mostly European citizen with a massive flood of pro-western propaganda.

    The question in the room is why Russian and Kazakh governments’ special services did not foresee this type of “Color Revolution” coming, especially after Russia’s drawing a red line on Ukraine? And after the west had lost her coup attempt in Belarus? Is it possible that the Ukraine distraction – hyped up by the western media with constant threats of a nuclear WWIII scenario – diverted President Putin’s attention from other vulnerable attack areas, such as Kazakhstan? And possibly Belarus? The latter is currently quiet. But to an outside eye, it looks like a temporary calm. And Ukraine is far from over.

    As long as Russia is running after the problem, rather than taking an offensive surprise lead, Putin may remain in a defensive bind. Reacting, rather than being pro-active. That’s always a disadvantage and may deserve strategic rethinking.

    Just imagine what a pro-active surprise move might be. For example, Russia setting up a military base in Mexico. And why not? Russia would certainly have the stature and standing in terms of friendly relations with Mexico to do so. It would be a game changer. It would put a different spin on world geopolitics. Why not give it a try by starting talks with AMLO, Mr. Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s President.

    The west’s / NATO’s intent has been since the 1990s to separate Kazakhstan from the orbit of the former Soviet Union and today’s Russia. So far unsuccessfully, for the reasons pointed out before. Kazakhstan exports 30% to and imports 60% from Russia and China. Today more than ever Kazakhstan is part of the Eurasian alliance. It is a de facto integrated nation and one in close partnership.

    The Russians and Kazakhs have learned from Ukraine. It didn’t take President Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich Tokayev long to request assistance from Russia; and it didn’t take long for President Putin to respond, through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO – Eurasian security organization; members: Russia (de facto leader), Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan).

    In addition to the CSTO troops, Russia also sent air force troops to counter the militants. Chances are that this will not become a new Kiev, where Assistant Foreign Minister Victoria Nuland, so eloquently said “f*ck Europe!” since the US had already spent 10 million dollars over the past years to prepare this coup.….

    What we see in Kazakhstan are very well trained and armed militants – not peaceful protesters, as would have been the case when protests started over gas price increases – it is clear that peaceful protesters do not take over government buildings and airports, they do not shoot police officers to kill – this is clearly foreign intervention.

    It is amazing – and sad – to watch how Europe plays along, letting NATO troops eventually ravaging the European territory – when Russia interferes. Only brainless European leaders (sic) will allow NATO playing war games that could turn anytime “hot” – hot again on the territories of Europe.

    That’s what the European Union has become. She is led by an unelected lady, Madame Ursula von der Leyden, formerly Germany’s Defense Minister, but more importantly and much less visibly, she is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. We know who calls the shots over the European Union – and most of the viciously dictatorial leaders (sic) of the EU member countries, stripped of their sovereignty – are scholars from Klaus Schwab’s special courses for “Young Global Leaders”. This also applied for the most covid-tyrannical heads of states around the world.

    They shall not prevail.

    Back to Kazakhstan. The same people who scare (mostly) the western people to death for a virus that has never been isolated and identified, are also behind destroying Russia and China.

    If they were to succeed in Kazakhstan, they would have managed to weaken Russia considerably, and the next step would most likely be NATO’s ignoring Moscow’s red line on Ukraine with the aim of arming Ukraine and making it eventually a NATO country.

    This is, however, still unlikely because Putin then would not hesitate invading Ukraine through the Dunbass area, defending Russia’s interests.   NATO and the US know that they have no chance against Russia’s newest defense systems.  Would they let it happen, letting Europe be obliterated for the third time in a bit more than 100 years?

    The fight for Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus is a pivotal strategic chess game.  Undoubtedly Russia will win it, but at what cost for Europe, for Eurasia?  The more severe the covid restrictions the west will impose – and the east will obey – the higher the price for maintaining or regaining sovereign European and Eurasian countries.

    The post Kazakhstan:  NATO’s New Frontier? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • What is behind the protests in Kazakhstan? A Zanovo-media correspondent interviewed Aynur Kurmanov — one of the leaders of Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.