Central Asia Archives

Kazakhstan's president on Monday (22 June) hailed the "new horizons" opening up to his country after the former Soviet state completed nearly two decades of talks on joining the World Trade Organisation.

One of the US government’s flagship programmes for development in the strategic south of Afghanistan risks running aground.

Rights groups lashed out at the EU on Wednesday for scrapping rescue operations in the Mediterranean, saying it had endangered the lives of thousands of desperate migrants making perilous journeys across the sea.

Ukraine faces an unprecedented energy crisis after the loss of coal mines and shale gas fields in war-torn regions, and Russia’s push to bypass it as a transit country for natural gas to Europe, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

Belarus, recent host of the Minsk Ceasefire summit, was the only country in Europe and Central Asia to execute prisoners last year. But, after reintroducing capital punishment in territory they hold, pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels have sentenced at least one man to death since September 2014.

During a public event Tuesday (17 March), Ró?a Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, a Polish MEP from the centre-right EPP, said and repeated that the Russians belong to a different culture, and that they have no respect for human life.

About a thousand people still contract tuberculosis daily in Europe and Central Asia, despite an overall decline of the disease, a report by the Europe Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) revealed Tuesday (17 March).

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called to boost European trade links on Sunday (8 March), as the European Commission mulls Beijing's market economy status within the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

For someone who gave up teaching two decades ago, Ann Cotton educates an awful lot of children. Since she began her Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) in 1993, she has supported 3 million children in five countries to stay in school and will support another million over the next five years. 

EXCLUSIVE: The European Union’s flagship energy project will prop up a rogue’s gallery of authoritarian governments responsible for a string of human rights abuses, while not improving gas supply security, civil society organisations have warned.

Russia has introduced an embargo on all Polish cheeses, basing it on just one type of cheese, the ‘Happy Cow’ brand. Euractiv Poland reports.

The flow of European fighters from Europe to territory held by the ultra-hardline Islamic State is drying up due to tighter restrictions imposed by European states that have prevented would-be jihadis from travelling, fighters from the group said.

Member states’ energy deals with non-EU nations should be scrutinised by the European Commission before they are signed, according to a draft plan for the flagship Energy Union that outlines a strategy to diversify energy suppliers.

The UK is spending billions of pounds on aid to fragile states but the programme has been ramped up too quickly, without proper scrutiny, and is not yet making a real difference, a government watchdog has warned.

Commissioner Christos Stylianides, responsible for humanitarian aid and crisis management, will be in Ukraine on January 26-27, to discuss the emergency with the authorities in Kyiv, to meet victims of the crisis in the east, and to reaffirm the EU's solidarity with affected people.

Diplomatic progress was made during four-way talks on the Ukraine crisis, and an agreement was reached on establishing security zones between pro-Russian fighters and Kyiv's forces, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.

The European Union will consider lifting sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis only if there is "real progress" in implementing a four-month-old ceasefire deal, Latvia's foreign minister said yesterday (12 January).

France and Germany suggested Monday (5 January) that Western sanctioning Russia had reached its limits and could only make things worse. The statements were made ahead of a four-way summit on the Ukraine crisis in Kazakhstan's capital Astana on 15 January.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has urged the UK to maintain its commitment to foreign aid, as it praised the country’s efforts in fighting global poverty despite the financial crisis.

The European Union will remain dependent on Russian pipeline gas imports for the “foreseeable future”, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned.

Russia protested today (21 November) statements by the Latvian ambassador to the EU for having made comments about Russian propaganda,  at a public event highlighting the priorities of the upcoming Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Rescuers pulled 24 bodies from the sea at the mouth of Istanbul's Bosphorus strait Monday (3 November) and rescued seven people after the sinking of a boat carrying migrants including children, the Turkish Coastguard Command said.

The European Union is quietly increasing the urgency of a plan to import natural gas from Iran, as relations with Tehran thaw, while those with top gas supplier Russia grow colder.

Climate finance is still going strong globally, but serious efforts are needed, including at the regulatory level, to sustain the momentum ahead of the UN Climate Summit.