Author: Senin Mamat

VAHDAT, Tajikistan — Shahboz Sharifbek has never had a political agenda or supported any political, religious, or social group. He doesn’t stand out from the crowd for any reason. Too poor to attend college, Sharifbek’s life revolved around finding odd jobs in his home village on the outskirts of the capital, Dushanbe, to provide for his impoverished family that includes his younger brother and their 82-year-old grandmother, who raised Shahboz and his brother when they were orphaned as kids. But the 23-year-old was recently sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly making a “public call via social media for…

Rustam Emomali is increasingly the face of his country on the international stage On January 29, China signed off on an agreement to hand Tajikistan the gift of $2 million to fund the construction of a conference room in a government building. As grants go, it is not a lot, but the real significance of the development lies elsewhere. As an official press release asserts, that the money was disbursed at all was the result of a visit paid to Beijing by the 36-year-old chair of the Senate, Rustam Emomali, better known to the public for being the son of President Emomali Rahmon. Common…

Berlin (06/12 – 67.67) Asliddin Sherzamonov, an activist from Tajikistan, strongly believes that the United Nations (UN) should assess the actions of the Central Asian country’s security forces during the events of 2021 and 2022 in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). Speaking at the UN session on minorities held in Geneva on December 1, Asliddin said that an independent international commission should be established to evaluate the activities of Tajikistan’s security forces. In the operations carried out by security forces in 2021 in Roshtkala and Khorog, three people died. In another operations in the spring of 2022 by the security…

More cases of dangerous haze pollution have been observed in the last few weeks, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. Today, civil society organisations in the region are calling on member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to protect and uphold citizens’ rights to clean air from the recurring haze by enacting a Transboundary Haze Pollution Act (THPA) as a concrete first step. In time for the Asia-Pacific Climate Week (APCW 2023) held from 13-17 November in Johor, Malaysia, Greenpeace Southeast Asia (GPSEA) and Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) reminded governments of their commitments to…

The Philippines is the odd one out in Asean in its total, welcoming embrace of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy, while other member states have viewed Washington with caution and concern, according to speakers at a conference in Manila on South China Sea maritime security. “The Indo-Pacific concept [by the US] is a trigger for South China Sea tensions,” Dr Supartono, director of Hang Tuah University in Surabaya, Indonesia, told the Maritime Security Conference in Metro Manila, held on November 22 by Singapore’s Asia Collective and the Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation founded by security analyst Chester Cabalza. The retired rear admiral of…

Toronto, Alaska (16/11 – 50) Our lives are being maneuvered and we are being manipulated by unelected, insidious forces, toward objectives not necessarily in the people’s interest. Now that the so-called “pandemic”, declared by the mysterious self-appointed World Health Organization, and followed obediently by governments everywhere, has been decreed “finished”, we should devote a moment to introspection, considering who is running the show and for whose benefit, as governments gaily abdicated their vested responsibility to govern. Pandemic is over? I hope they told those killer viruses who destroyed the population of Europe and North America. What? Oh, just 1% mortality?…

The quality of the internet has been severely compromised by restrictions placed on the market. The first step to solving a problem is admitting that it exists. Telecommunications regulators in Tajikistan have taken a surprising step in that direction by reportedly admitting this week that a staggering 95 percent of the country’s territory is covered by only outdated 2G mobile connections. This situation is in no small part due to the State Communications Service itself. In addition to regulating the sector, the service and the people running it are also major market players, albeit in highly nebulous ways that would be unthinkable…

Japanese marines in amphibious assault vehicles stormed an island beach at the edge of the East China Sea on Sunday in a simulated attack to dislodge invaders from territory that Tokyo worries is vulnerable to attack from China. As tensions run high with neighbours China, Russia and North Korea, the drill on the southwest island of Tokunoshima capped an 11-day series of exercises nationwide dubbed 05JX, meant to show the readiness of ground, sea and air forces to defend Japan’s territory and infrastructure, including nuclear power plants. “The goal of JX is to show that if there is an emergency situation resulting from an attack, that we…

The GDP growth forecast from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) October 2023 World Economic Outlook for the next year shows that the country will be among the top 15 fastest-growing economies. The IMF predicts the Cambodian economy to grow at 6.1 percent, which is the highest in the Asean region. Cambodia is ranked 14 on the list which is topped by Macao SAR (27.2 percent growth). Guyana (26.6 percent) stands second in the list followed by Palau (12.4 percent), Niger (11.1 percent), Senegal (8.8 percent), Libya (7.5 percent), Rwanda (7 percent), Cote d’Ivoire (6.6 percent), Burkina Faso (6.4 percent), Benin…

The region is contending with a strong dollar, rising oil prices and a weaker Chinese economy A potent combination of factors, including a stronger US dollar, a weaker Chinese economy, and rising oil prices, is creating a dangerous cocktail that threatens to disrupt the stability of Southeast Asian economies. A strong dollar makes servicing dollar-denominated debt more expensive, increasing the burden on countries with substantial external debt.  Additionally, it could lead to capital outflows as investors seek higher returns in the US, putting downward pressure on currencies of the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As a result,…