The International Monetary Fund recently released a series of predictions in its annual Regional Economic Outlook Update for the Caucasus and Central Asia, in which it details expectations which largely show economies in Central Asia slowing throughout the remainder of 2014, from 6.5% to 6%. The economic downturn in Central Asia can be ascribed chiefly…

Kazakhstan announced a deal with the Asian Development Bank on Sunday during the 47th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of Asian Development Bank in Astana to infuse cash and expertise into the country’s economy to develop the economy beyond its large oil and gas sector, which comprises roughly 80% of its total exports…

An official count of the deceased released yesterday numbered 42 in the wake of violent clashes between protestors in Ukraine’s southwestern city of Odessa. Tension began to rise on Friday afternoon as pro-Ukrainian activists took to the streets to confront separatist groups dressed in all black. Tensions soon metamorphosed into a bitter firefight, as both…

A new Turkmen opposition party, “Hereket” (the “Movement”) has appeared, reports RFE/RL. This is a strange development within a dictatorship that has a notoriously low tolerance for dissent. Turkmen opposition leaders, prominent in the transitional period of the 1990’s have fled to Europe, where they maintain comparatively small amount of influence and international attention. The…

The healthcare system in Kyrgyzstan has recently garnered negative attention for its inability to accommodate its own elderly citizenry. Though general healthcare, in addition more specialized healthcare, surgery and hospital care are technically free within Kyrgyzstan, the government does not provide enough funding to cover the needs of some of its most vulnerable populaces, including…

Pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine stormed government buildings in Luhansk, the provincial capital of Ukraine’s eastern region. Loyalties appear to have splintered, with local police waiting it out and not participating in the fighting, and the regional leadership and their state police still resisting the growing power of the pro-Russian militias. Among the locations seized…

Turkmenistan’s status as a gas giant and large scale provider to both East and West has expanded rapidly during the course of the last several years, and only looks to expand further as it announced plans to rapidly scale up existing infrastructure in order to accommodate the increasing needs of the European Union. The Turkmen…

Iran and Russia have been consistently dialoguing about potential deals for $10 billion worth of electricity, in addition to another set of deals to exchange food and other products for Iranian oil. Iranian Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian and Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak met in Tehran on Sunday to discuss the deal, which included construction…

Russia and India have made tentative arrangements to construct a $30 billion oil pipeline through China’s Xinjiang province south to India. The pipeline is set to be the most expensive yet constructed, and the groundwork for the agreement was laid last October when Manmohan Singh visited Moscow during the 14th annual India-Russia summit. The agreement…

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he will no longer seek to boost Russia’s sagging economy through an influx of government spending. The move turned heads in the international press given that Putin, along with his minister of economy, had initially voiced their support for the measure. The announcement was coupled with a statement released…