Kyrgyzstan

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Scientists May Have Solved a Mystery of the Plague
Black Death May
Have Started Here
NEW STUDY

Black Death May Have Started Here

Researchers believe 700-year-old teeth point to what is now Kyrgyzstan

(Newser) - Researchers say they've discovered "when and where the single most notorious and infamous killer of humans began." They're referring to the Black Death, or bubonic plague, which is thought to have wiped out tens of millions of people in Europe, Asia, and North Africa during...

Violence, Arrests Mar Women's Marches
Explosives Go Off
on Women's Day

Explosives Go Off on Women's Day

'They kill us, they rape us and nobody does anything,' chant women in Chile

(Newser) - From the streets of Manila to a school in East London, people around the world marked International Women’s Day on Sunday with calls to end exploitation and increase equality. But tensions marred some celebrations, with police arresting demonstrators at a rally in Kyrgyzstan and separatists detonating a bomb during...

Trump Issues New Travel Ban
Trump Issues
New Travel Ban


Trump Issues New Travel Ban

But critics decry the move as racist or nakedly political

(Newser) - President Trump has expanded his 2017 travel ban to include six more countries with sizeable Muslim populations, USA Today reports. Announced Friday, the new plan will block overseas visas for nationals of Nigeria, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan, and Eritrea, and keep people from Tanzania and Sudan from entering America via the diversity...

Dozens Die as Cargo Jet Crashes Into Village

747 plowed through buildings in Kyrgyzstan

(Newser) - Dozens of people in a village just outside Kyrgyzstan's Bishkek airport died in a horrific crash early Monday when a Boeing 747 cargo plane apparently missed the runway. The plane plowed for hundreds of yards through the village, breaking into pieces and destroying at least 15 buildings, Reuters reports....

Booze Smugglers Built Pipeline in River

Kazakhstan entrepreneurs found a way around taxes

(Newser) - It's not your usual smuggling bust: Authorities found a pipeline in the river connecting Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan used to ship alcohol, reports the BBC . Police say smugglers laid the pipe on the bed of the river Chu to move booze out of Kazakhstan, where grains are plentiful and spirits...

US Military Plane Breaks Into 3 Pieces in Crash

No word yet on casualties in Kyrgyzstan

(Newser) - A US military refueling tanker plane crashed today in Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian nation's emergencies ministry said. There was no immediate word on any casualties. A ministry statement said the plane crashed this afternoon near the village of Chaldovar, about 100 miles west of the Manas air base. Kyrgyzstan...

Behind Kyrgyzstan Unrest: Gold in the Mountains

Protests threatened as government debates mine's future

(Newser) - Kyrgyzstan has had two revolutions in eight years, and it's poised for a third amid anger over a gold mine at 12,000 feet. Nationalists say it's time for the Kumtor mine to return to local control after it was sold to a Canadian company in 2009; they...

Reporter Sues Over 'Mock Kidnapping' at Gunpoint

She allegedly stripped, uttered 'last words'

(Newser) - Some practical joke: A pair of reporters kidnapped a prominent Kyrgyzstan journalist and put a gun to her head before revealing it was all just for laughs, the BBC reports. Now Nazira Aytbekova is filing charges against the reporters, saying they held her at gunpoint and made her strip to...

Kyrgyzstan's 'Eternal Flame' Out Due to ... Unpaid Gas Bill

The $9K bill has gone unpaid for 3 years

(Newser) - When is an "Eternal Flame" not eternal? In Kyrgyzstan, it's when you don't pay the gas bill. A utilities company in the economically struggling former Soviet nation has turned off the gas supply to a major war memorial in the capital, Bishkek, after city authorities failed to...

13 Killed by 6.1 Earthquake in Uzbekistan

Kyrgyzstan-centered earthquake rocked eastern Uzbek city

(Newser) - A powerful earthquake killed 13 people and injured dozens in a heavily populated part of Uzbekistan today, emergency officials said. The magnitude-6.1 temblor centered in neighboring Kyrgyzstan struck shortly after midnight in a mountainous area some 20 miles away from the eastern Uzbek city of Ferghana, which has a...

Kyrgyz Parliament Sacrifices Sheep to Expel Evil Spirits

Central Asian nation's three-party coalition has been squabbling

(Newser) - It may not be the way to bring that "Kumbaya" feeling back to Capitol Hill, but maybe it'll work in Kyrgyzstan? Members of the country's parliament, which the AP describes as "raucous," sacrificed seven sheep this morning in an attempt to expel evil spirits from...

Ten Countries With Fastest Rising Food Prices

Droughts make matters worse in Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, elsewhere

(Newser) - Between June and December 2010, 44 million people across the world were pushed into poverty by rising food prices. The price of many agricultural commodities increased by more than 25%, and for many countries that rely heavily on grains such as wheat for sustenance, prices may not go back down...

10K Stray Dogs to Be Shot
 10K Stray Dogs to Be Shot 

10K Stray Dogs to Be Shot

Kyrgyzstan says it can't afford to build shelters for them

(Newser) - From bad to worse: Last year, Kyrgyzstan shot 5,000 stray dogs, unable to afford the $300,000 it would have cost to build shelters for them. This year, that figure is depressingly higher: Officials in the capital city of Bishkek say budgetary woes are forcing them to shoot the...

100K Uzbeks Flee Ethnic Massacre in Kyrgyzstan

Hundreds killed as mobs attack minority Uzbeks and burn city of Osh

(Newser) - Some 100,000 minority Uzbeks fleeing a purge by mobs of Kyrgyz were massed at the border today, as the deadliest ethnic violence to hit this Central Asian nation in decades left a major city smoldering. With fires raging in the southern city of Osh for a fourth day, the...

Military Handed Shady Kyrgyz Firms $1.4B

Companies possibly run by corrupt, deposed despots

(Newser) - The Pentagon has doled out $1.4 billion in no-bid contracts to a pair of mysterious foreign companies with alleged ties to Kyrgyzstan's corrupt ex-president, the military's main supply agency confirmed for Newsweek . The companies, Mina Corp. Ltd. and Red Star Enterprises, provided fuel for the US air base in...

Medvedev Orders Kyrgyzstan to Protect Russians

Interim government struggling to restore order after Bakiyev's ouster

(Newser) - Russia warned Kyrgyzstan yesterday that it needs to take steps to protect Russian citizens and property within its borders as turmoil continues. At least five people were killed as mobs of looters and land-grabbers targeted ethnic Russians and Turks in the Central Asian state yesterday, Bloomberg reports.

Deposed Kyrgyz Leader Resigns, Bolts

His departure should end fears of renewed violence

(Newser) - The deposed president of Kyrgyzstan left the country today for neighboring Kazakhstan after signing a formal letter of resignation. The move allays fears of new violence in the Central Asian nation that hosts a key US military base supporting the war in Afghanistan. All flights there have resumed. Kazakhstan said...

Kyrgyz Interim Leader: US Base Is Safe

Promises to extend lease; deal for ousted leader in works

(Newser) - The Kyrgyzstan chaos shows signs of resolution today on two fronts:
  • Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva tells the AP that the lease for the critical airbase used by the US in the Afghan war will be extended by a year in July.
  • Ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev offered to leave the country
...

Kyrgyzstan Unrest Bears Putin's Fingerprints

How about a stop to the meddling, pleads Simon Tisdall

(Newser) - Vladimir Putin’s “sardonic” acknowledgment of the interim regime in Kyrgyzstan yesterday is just another clue that the Russian government was involved in ousting president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Simon Tisdall writes. It’s obvious: Putin essentially paid off Bakiyev to boot the US from a Kyrgyz air base, which ended...

Opposition to Rule Kyrgyzstan for 6 Months

Military supports interim government; calm returns to streets

(Newser) - An opposition coalition proclaimed a new interim government today in Kyrgyzstan and said it would rule until elections are held in six months. It also urged the president, who has fled the capital, to resign. The new interim defense minister said the armed forces have joined the opposition and will...

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