Excerpt:
Salon
Uzbekistan
Like Turkmenistan, this Central Asian nation is important to the United States because of its border with Afghanistan and its energy resources. Its president since 1991, Islam Karimov, was reelected in 2000 with 92 percent of the vote and again in 2007 with 88 percent; political opposition has been repressed. Torture is common, and the Guardian reported in 2003 that two prisoners were even boiled to death.
The Bush administration began to woo Karimov as an ally after Sept. 11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, including with aid to the police and intelligence service. The U.S. imposed sanctions after a 2005 massacre of protesters by Karimov, but they were lifted a few years later, and the Obama administration has sought to repair the relationship. The country is currently a key supply route to Afghanistan from the north.
Here's what Human Rights Watch says about Uzbekistan's human rights record: "Authorities continue to crackdown on civil society activists, opposition members, and independent journalists, and to persecute religious believers who worship outside strict state controls. Freedom of expression remains severely limited. Government-initiated forced child labor during the cotton harvest continues."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7107200.ece
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http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/dec/article421.html
Excerpt:
While the Bush administration justifies its invasion of Iraq on the grounds of democratizing the Middle East, a similar policy of democratization apparently does not apply to Central Asia. One of George W. Bush's newest Central Asian friends is Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's neo- Stalinist dictator who allowed U.S. troops to set up a large and permanent military base on Uzbek soil during the Afghan campaign in late 2001. Since then, the Bush administration has ignored President Karimov's brutal suppression of opposition and Islamic groups. "Such people must be shot in the head. If necessary, I will shoot them myself," Karimov once famously told his parliament. According to human rights groups, there are at least 6,000 religious and political prisoners in Uzbekistan. Torture is widespread with reports of some dissidents even being boiled alive. In 2002, Washington granted Karimov's regime $500 million in aid and credit guarantees in return for the continued use of the military facilities in his country.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_lies_and_deceptions:_Uzbekispin
Excerpt:
The Bush administration has since just weeks after September 11, 2001, been openly sleeping with an enemy of democracy, known to be a torturer and murderer:
After being told by the Uzbekistan government that the American base was no longer welcome, the Bush Administration is attempting to reshape a political defeat in the Central Asian Steppes into an example of their uncompromising stand for human rights. The mainstream American media has been complicit and/or shallow in their analysis, generally restating the official government spin.
The Bush administration began to woo Karimov as an ally after Sept. 11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, including with aid to the police and intelligence service. The U.S. imposed sanctions after a 2005 massacre of protesters by Karimov, but they were lifted a few years later, and the Obama administration has sought to repair the relationship. The country is currently a key supply route to Afghanistan from the north.
Here's what Human Rights Watch says about Uzbekistan's human rights record: "Authorities continue to crackdown on civil society activists, opposition members, and independent journalists, and to persecute religious believers who worship outside strict state controls. Freedom of expression remains severely limited. Government-initiated forced child labor during the cotton harvest continues."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7107200.ece
Excerpt:
http://www.useless-knowledge.com/1234/dec/article421.html
Excerpt:
While the Bush administration justifies its invasion of Iraq on the grounds of democratizing the Middle East, a similar policy of democratization apparently does not apply to Central Asia. One of George W. Bush's newest Central Asian friends is Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's neo- Stalinist dictator who allowed U.S. troops to set up a large and permanent military base on Uzbek soil during the Afghan campaign in late 2001. Since then, the Bush administration has ignored President Karimov's brutal suppression of opposition and Islamic groups. "Such people must be shot in the head. If necessary, I will shoot them myself," Karimov once famously told his parliament. According to human rights groups, there are at least 6,000 religious and political prisoners in Uzbekistan. Torture is widespread with reports of some dissidents even being boiled alive. In 2002, Washington granted Karimov's regime $500 million in aid and credit guarantees in return for the continued use of the military facilities in his country.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_lies_and_deceptions:_Uzbekispin
Excerpt:
The Bush administration has since just weeks after September 11, 2001, been openly sleeping with an enemy of democracy, known to be a torturer and murderer:
- "Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, both on Afghanistan's norther border, have granted a U.S. request to let commandos launch strikes from the former Soviet republics."
- Rowan Scarborough, "[3]", Washington Times (Nucnews dot net mirror), September 28, 2001
After being told by the Uzbekistan government that the American base was no longer welcome, the Bush Administration is attempting to reshape a political defeat in the Central Asian Steppes into an example of their uncompromising stand for human rights. The mainstream American media has been complicit and/or shallow in their analysis, generally restating the official government spin.
Excerpt:
And in Uzbekistan, the historic centerpiece of Central Asia and its most densely populated market, Coke teamed up with a son-in-law of strongman President Islam Karimov--and came to regret it. Coke saw the former Soviet state as its gateway to the entire region. So in 1993 it signed a deal with one Mansur Maqsudi, an Afghan-American living in New Jersey. He had no previous bottling experience--but he was married to the Uzbek president's eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova. Together they opened Coca-Cola Bottlers Uzbekistan (CCBU), owned in equal parts by Coke's export subsidiary, Coca-Cola Export Corp., a Maqsudi family trading company and the government of Uzbekistan.
Maqsudi brought in his older brother to help run the operation. CCBU, headquartered in Tashkent, found all doors open to it. Pepsi, which had owned the market in Soviet times, was pushed out, and all of Uzbekistan was soon covered with red Coke logos. In the next eight years CCBU invested over $100 million in new bottling plants, warehouses and a nationwide distribution network. By 1997 the operation was raking in $118 million in sales and recording net profit margins of 29%. CCBU was twice selected by Coke as "Bottler of the Year" for the Eurasia/Middle East region.
Then in the summer of 2001 things began to fall apart. Maqsudi's marriage broke up. His estranged wife left New Jersey and took their two children back to Uzbekistan. Maqsudi, still president of CCBU, remained in New Jersey. In August 2001 the Uzbek tax police came calling, unearthing the disturbing fact that CCBU conducted almost all its transactions through companies owned by the Maqsudi brothers.
Most of the goods CCBU imported (sugar, bottling equipment, plastic preforms, labels, caps, etc.) went through the Maqsudi-owned companies. And while Coke was paid, often late, in wobbly Uzbek currency that couldn't be taken out of the country, Maqsudi's properties got preferential treatment; they were paid in hard currency, often in advance. From 1998 to 2001, while Coke was struggling to get paid, almost $100 million was wired from Uzbekistan to Maqsudi affiliates, including a Dubai-based trading firm, Valuelink FZE, and various offshore affiliates of Roz Trading (the Maqsudi company that held the family's CCBU stake), according to Uzbek Central Bank records.
The Uzbek prosecutor general's office now claims that by overcharging for these imports and taking straightforward trading commissions, the Maqsudis siphoned off much of CCBU's profits and stashed it in offshore accounts to avoid tens of millions of dollars in taxes. In 2002 the Uzbek authorities confiscated the Maqsudis' equity share in CCBU.
Mansur Maqsudi counters that he and his family are victims of a political vendetta launched by his ex-wife. He says his companies never made any profits on the Coca-Cola venture and that they played an indispensable role in keeping the CCBU operation afloat. Since CCBU became engulfed in scandal, however, its business has slowed down; this summer it finally stopped altogether. That has hurt Coke's business in Uzbekistan, which had anchored its sales in the entire region.
From a purely financial perspective, however, Coke's downside was minuscule, in part because the Uzbek business was tiny on the soda giant's $20 billion-a-year scale. From 1997 to 2000 CCBU made $82 million in net profits, letting Coke add a mere $27million to its own bottom line. But most of Coke's equity income was reinvested in CCBU, and as much as $40 million was left in an Uzbek bank account, mired in nonconvertible Uzbek soums. "We simply didn't know what to do with the money; we had no place else to put it," says Maqsudi.
An internal Coke report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers that was rushed out in two weeks pegged Coke's "quantifiable loss" in the Uzbek affair at a mere $3 million, but said the real sum could be much higher; it also made note of possible attempts by a CCBU official to impede the investigation.
http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-do/health-topics/disease-prevention/vaccines-and-immunization/activities/deployment-of-pandemic-h1n1-vaccine
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In the European Region, eight countries are eligible to receive donated stockpiled vaccine: Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Each will receive pandemic vaccine to cover 10% of their population: a total of 11.5 million doses.
For a country to receive donated vaccine, it is required to request donated vaccines and sign an agreement accepting the terms and conditions of support. After this, it is expected to send a deployment plan to WHO/Europe, where a WHO regional team has been established to review and approve drafted and finalized national vaccine deployment plans. This step usually involves revision before plans are approved and forwarded to WHO headquarters. Plans are approved shortly after receipt by headquarters, and the shipment process is initiated.
http://www.parliament.gov.uz/en/events/other/2818
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In the speeches of President Islam Karimov the need for effective and timely application of innovative technologies in the economy was repeatedly emphasized. Methods of influence on biological organisms and organic substances for the purpose of modifying and giving them new properties have long passed the stage of basic scientific research in applied science, which in turn is inextricably linked to economic, social needs of humanity.
In recent years, concepts such as «Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), genetically-modified food (GMF)», «Genetically modified seeds (GMS)» have came up. Today, biotechnology is implemented at the cellular and molecular level in the direction of genetic engineering. The results of such manipulations lead to the emergence of new species of animals and plants with predetermined properties.
