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The upcoming summit in Samarkand will bring together for the first time the leaders of the five Central Asian countries and the European Union. Following years of reform and European assistance, the five Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - are embarking on a strategic pivot towards Europe. The EU is seeking reliable partners in the current rapidly changing geopolitical reality. This is for political and also economic reasons, such as trade, investment and energy. On Thursday and Friday, the Uzbek city of Samarkand will host the first-ever high level meeting between the EU and the...

How did early hunter-gatherers manage to survive in some of the most inhospitable places on Earth, and could pieces of one of the world's oldest pots hold a clue?Prof Alice Roberts journeys to Asia, the world's greatest land mass, and attempts to replicate ancient survival techniques that appear to have been passed down through many generations. With little precedent and only the most primitive resources available, our ancestors' innovation and experimentation was vital for their success.This clip is from Incredible Human Journey (2009).What Turned Hunter-Gatherers Into Empire Builders? | 4:44BBC Timestamp | 785K subscribers | 6,728 views | November 13,...

Mystery of The Ancient Greek City Bizarrely Located in Afghanistan | 8:05Discovery Future | 24K subscribers | 13,393 views | October 12, 2024

In the wake of yet another foiled ISIS-inspired terrorist plot, this one by a Canada-based Pakistani seeking to kill Jews in New York on the anniversary of last year’s Hamas attack in Israel, everyone is loudly proclaiming: “ISIS is back.”And yet, this analysis is wrong.For someone or something to “be back,” it has to have left in the first place. This return can be surprising or expected, but in the end it is of note. With respect to the ISIS terrorist group, it has not “resurged” because it never went away in the first place.The group has been around since...

Newsweek reports that researchers from the Margulan Institute of Archaeology have discovered a face carved into a granite boulder at the top of a rocky outcrop in central Kazakhstan. The carving measures about ten inches long by eight inches wide, with well-preserved eyes, nose, and lips. A collapsed stone stele measuring more than six feet long and three feet wide was found nearby. It had been carved on one side with an image of a deer with large antlers. Archaeologist Sergey Yarygin said that the carved face and the stela are similar to others found at Bronze Age sites in...

The number of migrants flocking to the US-Mexico border from a country known as a hotbed of ISIS recruitment has skyrocketed under President Biden. More than 1,500 migrants from Tajikistan are known to have crossed the border between October 2020 and May 2024, according to leaked border dated obtained by The Post. At least 500 Tajiks have been caught so far this year. Over the previous 14 years there were just 26 Tajik nationals crossing the border. It’s unknown how many of the Tajik migrants were released into the US, but the vast majority of migrants caught at the border...

How Turkmenistan Became the Most Evil Country on Earth – Contents of this video ---------------------------- 00:00 - The World’s Strangest Dictatorship 07:07 - The Cotton Colossus 17:01 - Great Leader of the Turkmen 25:00 - A Dictators Marble Paradise 32:31 - Echoes of the Throne

The organization, CSTO, is a Russian-led security alliance that includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan “Radicals from Central Asia have accounted for a notable share of recent Islamic State-inspired or -directed plots and attacks in the United States, Europe, Turkey, and Iran,” Lucas Webber and Riccardo Valle wrote in a Hudson Institute analysis last year. In September 2022, ISKP – which vehemently opposes Russia’s support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria – claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the Russian embassy in Kabul which left six dead. Despite repeatedly warnings from foreign sources – including the U.S....

Most are unaware that there were Ancient Greek kingdoms in China and that Hellenism spread all the way to Japan and Korea via India. However, the fact is that the Greeks were indeed in China, and, in addition to this, Hellenism spread to the entirety of the East Asian Buddhist world. In fact, the first anthropomorphic statue of Buddha was created by the Greeks. The famous Silk Road that connected Europe to China actually opened because of a war between Greeks of Alexandria Eschate. Alexandria Eschate, meaning “Alexandria the Farthest,” is located in the Fergana Valley in what is modern...

Turkey seeks Central Asia inroads with Russia distracted Nov 11, 2022 Turkey will lead a summit of Central Asian countries on Friday (11 November), aiming to strengthen economic ties with the region’s resource-rich ex-Soviet states while Moscow is distracted by the war in Ukraine. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will preside over the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) summit in Uzbekistan’s historic city of Samarkand. Erdogan has for several years been pushing for closer cultural, linguistic and religious ties with several ex-Soviet countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February spooked Moscow’s neighbours in...

Just over a week ago, Chinese leader Xi Jinping embarked on a three-day trip to Central Asia to mark his sphere of influence. He has since been out of the public eye, skipping a high-level military meeting and the annual United Nations assembly.With China only weeks away from the 20th National Congress, where Xi is set to pursue an unprecedented third term, his absence has been long enough to attract attention from keen political watchers, with some even speculating that he has been placed under house arrest.By Sept. 24, Xi Jinping had become one of the top trending topics on...

For the last two years, there was no place like home for Chinese President Xi Jinping. He had not moved out of his home in Beijing and was not meeting any world leader, not even any prominent CCP leader. However, on September 14th, the tyrant leader finally moved out of his home for an SCO meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. After a hiatus of two years, Xi departed for Central Asia by a special flight and attended the 22nd Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). But, despite being the founding member of SCO,...

Tehran (AsiaNews) – Iran will become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with the signing of the memorandum of obligation at a summit in Samarkand, on 15-16 September. “This year, within Uzbekistan's chairmanship, Iran, as an observer state will ... become a full-fledged member of the SCO,” RIA Novosti quoted Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov as saying yesterday during a meeting in Moscow. Iran took one step closer to full membership on 17 September last year when its application was accepted 15 years after it was made. On that date, SCO began the country's accession, which usually...

In 1965, a mural was discovered in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, when local authorities decided to build a road in the middle of the Afrasiab tepe. A tepe is a mound marking an ancient site, in this case pre-Mongol Samarkand. When it was found, the mural was weathered and its images obscured. But those who discovered it had the foresight to make a drawing of it, from which replicas have been made. A replica of this mural is now being shown as part of the exhibit "The Crossroads of Civilizations: The Asian Culture of Uzbekistan" until September of next year at the...

After Ukraine, Could Central Asia Be Next? Ukraine and Russia’s western flank is the first step of an attempt to restore a Russian Empire. Kazakhstan and its Central Asian neighbors look set to come next. /snip The world’s attention is understandably fixed on Ukraine right now and its remarkable defensive effort, led by a democratic champion in Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But we must also consider the bigger picture. It is not just Ukraine that now finds itself at an existential crossroads vis-à-vis Putin’s Russia. Central Asia, a vast and frequently misunderstood region stretching from the Caspian Sea to China, was long...

Central Asia Faces Financial Chaos As Russia’s Economy Collapses By Eurasianet - Mar 13, 2022, 10:00 AM CDT Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent its economy into a nosedive. Central Asian economies are highly exposed to Russia. A collapsing Russian economy risks mutating into a deadly pathogen for Central Asia. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Western sanctions in response have left former Soviet states in Central Asia facing economic chaos. Since Vladimir Putin launched his war on February 24, the ruble has collapsed by 50 percent with no bottom in sight. Russia has enacted currency controls reminiscent of the...

Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang’s famous mummies (AFP) 19 April 2005 URUMQI, China - After years of controversy and political intrigue, archaeologists using genetic testing have proven that Caucasians roamed China’s Tarim Basin 1,000 years before East Asian people arrived. The research, which the Chinese government has appeared to have delayed making public out of concerns of fueling Uighur Muslim separatism in its western-most Xinjiang region, is based on a cache of ancient dried-out corpses that have been found around the Tarim Basin in recent decades. “It is unfortunate that the issue has been so politicized because it...

One day in a spring, an elderly man walked alone on a stone road lined by young willows in Xuzhou in East China's Jiangsu Province. At the end of the road was a museum that few people have heard of. A Chinese theology professor says the first Christmas is depicted in the stone relief from the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220). In the picture above a woman and a man are sitting around what looks like a manger, with allegedly "the three wise men" approaching from the left side, holding gifts, "the shepherd" following them, and "the assassins" queued...

Moscow has categorically stated that it will not accept a US military presence in the Central Asian region. This reiteration has come at the level of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who told TASS that Afghanistan had been discussed at a meeting with Victoria Nuland, the visiting US Undersecretary of State, in Moscow on Tuesday. Ryabkov added: “We emphasized the unacceptability of a US military presence in Central Asian countries in any form whatever.” Prima facie, Ryabkov has squashed the disinformation media campaign by Washington that at the Russia-US summit in Geneva in June, President Vladimir Putin had offered...

The Jewish scholarly world is abuzz over the discovery of ancient Jewish scrolls in a cave in Afghanistan's Samangan province, Channel 2 reported on Friday. According to Arab Affairs correspondent Ehud Yeari, if validated the scrolls may be the most significant historical finding in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Geniza in the 19th century. "We know today about a couple of findings," Haggai Ben-Shammai, Professor Emeritus of Arabic Language and Literature at Hebrew University was quoted as saying. "In all, in my opinion, there are about 150 fragments. It may be the tip of the iceberg." The...