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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 Asian Water & An Aral Proverb: “In Every Drop Of Water There Is A Grain of Gold”
April 4th, 2009
In the latest SAISPHERE 2008, John Daly details more about the most severe conundrum facing Central Asian nations: water. As the report notes: The implosion of the U.S.S.R. in December 1991 sundered a country of 15 constituent republics into 15 new nations, which were immediately faced with the consequences of the dissolution of an economically […]
Read more »Hydro-Solidarity and Transboundary River Issues in Central Asia & The Middle East
March 20th, 2009
Via Terra Daily, an interesting look at three of the most challenging regions managing trans-boundary river issues and the chance for “hydro-solidarity” to overcome rising tensions in the Middle East and former Soviet Central Asia, both water-deprived regions with rapidly growing populations along with rising agricultural, industrial and energy requirements. As the article notes: “…Three […]
Read more »Russian Interest in Central Asian Water
February 1st, 2009
Via Terra Daily, an interesting report on Russia’s increasing interest in Central Asia’s water resources. As the article notes “…Within the “Stans” — former Soviet republics Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — an added element in the matrix is water, used by Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan largely to generate hydroelectric power, while the downstream states […]
Read more »Central Asian Water: The Thirsty Dragon, The Aral Sea, and Ongoing Dilemmas
January 23rd, 2009
As we have discussed in this blog previously, Central Asian countries are divided into water suppliers (the mountainous countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) and water consumers (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). But the Central Asian water crisis is not just about the fate of the Aral Sea. It is about the management of the entire basin, including […]
Read more »Politics of Water in Central Asia – In Pictures
December 10th, 2008
Via Time, an interesting collection of stark photographs & commentary detailing the water politics of Central Asia, specifically how four former Soviet Republics fight for control of a precious resource. Abundance Central Asia is rich in water, but 90% of it is concentrated in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, above. In Soviet times, the […]
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