Eurasianet

While clumsy on COVID-19, Turkmenistan is being more sure-footed, or consistent at least, on the Afghanistan front. Plus, unsustainable agriculture. Our weekly briefing.

The government signals it is taking COVID a bit more seriously, without admitting the virus is running rampant. And Ashgabat gets down to business with the Taliban. This and more in our weekly briefing.

With the Taliban at the border, the president heads in the other direction to oversee defense operations on the Caspian Sea. Our weekly Turkmenistan briefing.

That Central Asia's presidents seemed to enjoy themselves together was itself a breakthrough. This and more in our weekly Turkmenistan briefing.

Cases are rising rapidly and vaccines – for those who want them – are hard to find.

Vaccine hesitancy in Uzbekistan is high, bred by social media conspiracies that seem credible in a country without accountable authorities.

Our Kazakhstan correspondent describes the waiting, the bureaucracy, and the anticlimax of getting his Sputnik V jab in Almaty.

The health minister then drank the concoction at a press conference.

Although Turkmenistan is rarely mentioned as a prospective member of the Moscow-led EAEU trading bloc, that notion is quite obviously on the Kremlin’s mind. Our weekly briefing.

The region appears wholly unprepared for the latest rise in cases.

It can take four days to get to the front of the line at this bitterly cold pass almost two miles high.

Hopes are being pinned on the Sino-Uzbek vaccine ZF-UZ-VAC 2001.

Dushanbe is desperate to resume flights to Russian cities.

Spraying chlorine, new infrastructure on the Afghan border, and claims of a naturally occurring COVID vaccine. This and more in our weekly Turkmenistan bulletin.

Surabaldiyeva says "several thousand" people may have died.