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The Aral Sea
April 27th, 2011
Courtesy of Foreign Policy, an updated look at the tragedy of the Aral Sea: Aral Sea Satellite Outline in 2009, Showing the Original Shoreline of 1960. Courtesy of NASA “…The Aral Sea, shared by Kazakhstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the south, is a sad story of one of the most devastating ecological disasters […]
Read more »Geopolitics of the Aral Sea
June 18th, 2010
Courtesy of STRATFOR (subscription required), an interesting video analysis of the geopolitics of a drying Aral Sea.
Read more »Water Tension In Central Asia
October 9th, 2009
Courtesy of The Open Economy, a detailed look at the growing water crisis in Central Asia. We have covered this several times previously in this forum but, given the increasing severity and likelihood of transnational tensions, it seems useful to address it once again. As the article notes: “…At first glance, China’s neighbour Kyrgyzstan, with […]
Read more »A Dying Aral Sea Gives Rise To Increased Tensions In The Region
September 29th, 2009
Via Window on Eurasia, a report that demise of the Aral Sea, the loss of which is already having an adverse effect on two-thirds of the 50 million people in Central Asia, is rapidly increasing tensions in the capitals of the five countries of the region and could spark new and larger military conflicts among […]
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 »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 […]
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