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BEIJING. April 13 (Interfax-China) - The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's summit, due to be held on June 15 2006, will discuss the issue of renaming and reforming the organization's secretariat, said the SCO's Executive Secretary Zhang Deguang. "The Secretariat was set up at the organization's onset. The SCO has gone through significant change and development, which requires that the Secretariat be reorganized and renamed," Zhang said. The upcoming summit will also address the issue of granting the status of permanent members to individual observer states, at their request, he said. Regarding talks between the SCO defense ministers, set for the...

On July 20, Kyrgyzstan's Ministry of Defense announced that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to arrive on July 25. Rumsfeld will discuss the future of the U.S.-led air base Manas with the new Kyrgyz leadership, in the wake of Moscow- and Beijing-inspired demands to set a deadline on the presence of U.S.-led coalition forces in Central Asia. Meanwhile, French Defense Minister Michèle Aliot-Marie is arriving in Tajikistan on July 22 hoping to firm up the arrangements for French use of the Dushanbe and possibly also Kulob airports. For its part, on July 20 Moscow again urged the Central...

Leaders of a six-nation security bloc led by Beijing and Moscow called for a deadline to be set for the withdrawal of US forces from bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which comprises Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, signed a declaration calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of airbases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. "Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines on...

AIDS in Central Asia: It's about the economyBy Edmund Settle Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. BEIJING - The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has held no fewer than three meetings since July to discuss further regional economic integration and energy security, while simultaneously trying to strengthen the organiztion's response to regional threats such as terrorism, all of which point to the SCO's maturity and consolidation. The third session was held in late September and attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Although the...