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The Syr Darya: An Example of Failure
May 8th, 2009
Via The Foreign Policy Association, unfortunate news regarding the fate of the Syr Darya river in Central Asia, a true example of the failure of regional cooperation and water politics. As the article notes: “…On March 26, at a meeting in Almaty of state-sponsored environmentalists and ecologists, the Syr Darya was declared too polluted to […]
Read more »Central Asian Leaders Clash Over Water At Aral Sea Summit
April 30th, 2009
Via Eurasia.net disappointing (but not unexpected) news that a summit on the future of the shrinking Aral Sea ended without making any tangible progress on resuscitating the endangered sea. In fact, if anything, the meeting succeeded only in stoking acrimony among participants on the water-use issue. As the article notes: “…The presidents of the five […]
Read more »Hydroplomacy: A Central Asian Water Summit
April 27th, 2009
Via Yahoo, news of an upcoming meeting among the five leaders of Central Asian nations to try to end a bitter row over water use in one of the world’s driest regions. As the article notes: “…The dispute over cross-border water sharing in the vast region north of Afghanistan is a worry for its leaders […]
Read more »Central Asia: Creation of A Downstream Water-Energy Bloc
April 12th, 2009
Via Windows on Eurasia, an interesting report on the geopolitics behind the death of the Aral Sea and the emergence of “the youngest desert in the world, the Aralkum†which, as the article notes, are causing the countries around it to be increasingly drawn into serious conflicts over ever scarcer water resources. “…as a result […]
Read more »Central Asia Water Wars: Turkmenistan To Join Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan Vs. Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan
April 12th, 2009
Via The Foreign Policy Association, a report that – in advance of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea meeting in Almaty on April 28 – Uzbekistan’s President, Islam Karimov, has been busy convincing Turkmenistan’s President, Gurbangly Berdymukhamedov, to ally with the downstream Central Asian states against the upstream ones. As the article notes: […]
Read more »Central Asia’s Water Tensions Heat Up Over Planned Hydroelectric Projects
April 10th, 2009
Via Eurasia.Net, a report that Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are preparing to jointly block Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s proposed hydroelectric projects. As the article notes: “…Both downstream users of Central Asia’s main waterways, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, may use an upcoming conference on the Aral Sea to try to block hydro-power projects under consideration […]
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