According to UN statistics, there may be up to 87,000 stateless people in Uzbekistan. Many are ethnic Uzbeks who fled Tajikistan’s civil war in the early 1990s.
After weeks of rumors that the president had died, state television packed its evening news with evidence that the president is not just alive, but positively brimming with energy.
Credit and access to hard currency are no longer problems. But the lack of experienced technicians has forced businesses to scope out other ways of bringing staff up to scratch.
The mere speculation of the president’s death has arguably generated more attention for Turkmenistan than any sports event or international conference ever did.