Tag: Russia

Tajikistan: Dushanbe Building Boom Blocks Out Economic Concerns | EurasiaNet.org

A building boom in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe — one that has given rise to Central Asia’s largest library, tallest flagpole and the soon-to-be most spacious teahouse – is prompting some residents to joke that the city is becoming a showcase for a new-ish architectural style, “dictator chic.”

While a few may laugh, the government’s apparent preoccupation with building has plenty of other Dushanbe residents grumbling. At a time when the majority of Tajiks are fighting a desperate battle againstpoverty, critics contend that vast state layouts for showpiece construction projects cannot be justified.

The pace of new construction was at its fastest during the months leading up to the 20th anniversary of Tajikistan’s independence last fall. To celebrate the occasion, authorities commissioned several hundred so-called “jubilee objects.” Officially, the state spent $212 million on anniversary preparations, an amount equaling 10 percent of the national budget, and six times the annual assistance the United States Agency for International Development gives Tajikistan.

Although the independence anniversary has come and gone, the penchant for urban renewal remains strong. In February, Dushanbe authorities published a list of several dozen buildings located along the so-called “protocol highway” – on which President Imomali Rahmon and other senior officials drive to work – that have been designated for demolition. Many of these buildings are solid apartment blocks that are home to several thousand people. Officials are mum on kind of compensation owners can anticipate, and residents expect to be moved to the distant suburbs: they’ve seen the relentless development approaching for years, including high-rise, “elite” apartments in their neighborhood.

via Tajikistan: Dushanbe Building Boom Blocks Out Economic Concerns | EurasiaNet.org.

Dogs to help Russian servicemen in Tajikistan: Voice of Russia

The Russian military base 201, which is situated in Tajikistan, recently started to use dogs as mine searchers. The dogs help to clear up firing grounds from unexploded grenades or shells, or look for explosive devices in order to prevent terror acts during public events. The dogs’ handlers at the base 201 have undergone special training in Russia.

The Russian contingent has been deployed in Tajikistan since the early 1990s, mainly at the Tajik-Afghan border, and, partially, in the cities of Dushanbe, Kulyab and Kurgan-Tyube. The Russian 201 division took a decisive role in the outcome of the civil war in Tajikistan, which lasted since 1992 till 1997.

De-miners of the 201st division are obliged to regularly ‘clear up’ the firing grounds “Lyaur,” “Momirak” and “Sambuli” from all kinds of explosive devices. Each year, exercises to practice operations against terrorists are held at these firing grounds. Because of the very uneven landscape at the firing fields, it is impossible to search for explosive devices with methods traditionally applied in Russia for this purpose. The only possible way is to use mine detectors – and dogs.

At present, the military base 201 has more than 10 dogs. As a rule, they are trained in pairs. Shepherd dogs and Rottweilers are, as a rule, trained for guard and patrol duties, while Labradors – for searching mines. Labradors have all the qualities which are needed for a de-miner’s helper – they are perfect sniffers, they are strong, tireless and calm. De-miners say that dogs are often even more reliable than mine detectors.

via Dogs to help Russian servicemen in Tajikistan: Voice of Russia.

Medvedev Orders Emergency Aid to Tajikistan | Russia | RIA Novosti

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government to start preparing emergency aid for Tajikistan to help tackle the aftermath of an unusually cold and long winter, his web site said on Friday.

 

Earlier in the day, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon requested aid at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Putin “pledged that emergency humanitarian assistance will be rendered as soon as possible,” his website said.

 

“Following the appeal by the President of Tajikistan, Dmitry Medvedev instructed the Government of the Russian Federation to provide emergency humanitarian assistance to Tajikistan to overcome the effects of abnormal winter weather conditions,” a statement posted on the Kremlin website reads.

via Medvedev Orders Emergency Aid to Tajikistan | Russia | RIA Novosti.

India maintains strategic air base in Central Asia

New Delhi: India is in talks with Tajikistan to set up a military hospital there even as it maintains an airbase in Ayni there, the country’s only such facility overseas.

India has collaborated with Tajikistan to “reconstruct and recreate” the airbase which is strategically significant due to its location next to Afghanistan, government sources said here today.

While New Delhi maintains that reconstruction of the air base is part of the assistance programme to Tajikistan, the nature of such facilities is significant due to its presence in oil-rich Central Asia.

The facility also assumes significance in view of the presence major international players like the US, Russia and others in the region. There are two more air bases in the region which are manned by Americans and Russians.

Sources said the Russian government had also shown interest in using the facility but the air base was clinched by Defence Minister A K Antony during his visit to Tajikistan in October this year. 


Antony had also made a technical halt at the base on way to Russia in October last year. 

via India maintains strategic air base in Central Asia.

Interfax-Religion

Dushanbe, February 24, Interfax – A Tajik court has convicted seven people supporting the extremist ideas of the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic movement of openly calling for a violent subversion of the country’s legitimate authorities, the Tajik Supreme Court said in a press release.

The trial was held in the Sogda region, 100 kilometers north of the Dushanbe capital.

“The court found the defendants, seven citizens of Tajikistan, guilty of publicly calling for a violent subversion of the Tajikistan Republic’s constitutional system – Article 307.1 – and gave them prison sentences,” the court said.

Two of them were sentenced to five years in prison each, and the remaining five received three-year prison terms each.

It was the first trial over Tablighi Jamaat followers in Tajikistan in the past two years, following the conviction of 56 supporters of this movement in March 2010. Twenty-three Tajik citizens were given sentences ranging from three to six years in prison, and 33 other people were ordered to pay fines from $8,000 to $16,000.

Tablighi Jamaat, which does not have official registration, is widely popular in South Asian countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. However, the authorities of these countries regard this religious movement as dangerous.

via Interfax-Religion.

Russia’s Central Asian Bases Face Problems, 29 February 2012 Wednesday 11:35

Statements from Kyrgyz officials about U.S. forces vacating the Manas air base have made the news often in recent months, but in recent days Russia is facing problems over its use of bases in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan’s president brought the subject of Russia’s unpaid rent for use of a base in his country during a February 23-25 visit to Moscow. Now Tajikistan is bringing up the subject of rent for Russia’s use of bases on its territory.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Tajik Service on February 28, Tajik Ambassador to Russian Abdulmajid Dostiev said his country and Russia are preparing to extend Russia’s use of three bases in Tajikistan for another 49 years. Asked why there was a delay in signing, Dostiev indicated among the details still being negotiated was the matter of rent for use of the Tajik bases and said “no one in the world today intends to give up even a small plot of their land for nothing.” The Tajik ambassador said, “our country should keep this in mind, whether there should be payment of some $300 million or compensation through providing military-technical aid,” adding “nobody will say thank you to those who give up their land for free to others.”

The $300 million figure has been mentioned in Tajikistan but Dostiev conceded that even 10 percent of that amount of money would be acceptable.

via Russia’s Central Asian Bases Face Problems, 29 February 2012 Wednesday 11:35.

Danger waters: Top spots of potential conflict in the geo-energy era – and how Tajikistan is involved.

The Caspian Sea Basin

by Michael T. Klare on January 13, 2012

The Caspian Sea is an inland body of water bordered by Russia, Iran, and three former republics of the USSR: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. In the immediate area as well are the former Soviet lands of Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. All of these old SSRs are, to one degree or another, attempting to assert their autonomy from Moscow and establish independent ties with the United States, the European Union, Iran, Turkey, and, increasingly, China. All are wracked by internal schisms and/or involved in border disputes with their neighbors.  The region would be a hotbed of potential conflict even if the Caspian basin did not harbor some of the world’s largest undeveloped reserves of oil and natural gas, which could easily bring it to a boil.

This is not the first time that the Caspian has been viewed as a major source of oil, and so potential conflict. In the late nineteenth century, the region around the city of Baku — then part of the Russian empire, now in Azerbaijan — was a prolific source of petroleum and so a major strategic prize. Future Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin first gained notoriety there as a leader of militant oil workers, and Hitler sought to capture it during his ill-fated 1941 invasion of the USSR. After World War II, however, the region lost its importance as an oil producer when Baku’s onshore fields dried up. Now, fresh discoveries are being made in offshore areas of the Caspian itself and in previously undeveloped areas of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

According to energy giant BP, the Caspian area harbors as much as 48 billion barrels of oil (mostly buried in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan) and 449 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (with the largest supply in Turkmenistan). This puts the region ahead of North and South America in total gas reserves and Asia in oil reserves.  But producing all this energy and delivering it to foreign markets will be a monumental task. The region’s energy infrastructure is woefully inadequate and the Caspian itself provides no maritime outlet to other seas, so all that oil and gas must travel by pipeline or rail.

Russia, long the dominant power in the region, is pursuing control over the transportation routes by which Caspian oil and gas will reach markets.  It is upgrading Soviet-era pipelines that link the former SSRs to Russia or building new ones and, to achieve a near monopoly over the marketing of all this energy, bringing traditional diplomacy, strong-arm tactics, and outright bribery to bear on regional leaders (many of whom once served in the Soviet bureaucracy) to ship their energy via Russia.  As recounted in my book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, Washington sought to thwart these efforts by sponsoring the construction of alternative pipelines that avoid Russian territory, crossing Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey to the Mediterranean (notably the BTC, or Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline), while Beijing is building its own pipelines linking the Caspian area to western China.