Word: border
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When five militants, all Russian citizens, were shot and killed in a gun battle at a remote military checkpoint near Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan, the Tajik government was quick to label the dead as "members of an organized terrorist group." The group has not been named, but the shootings highlight the grim irony of the struggle against terrorism in Afghanistan. With the U.S. increasing military pressure in Afghanistan and Pakistan mounting security operations along its border with the country, fighters from Russia and the ex-Soviet republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia are returning home. And while that...
...July 16 battle was just another recent example of the growing instability along Tajikistan's 830-mile (1,335 km) border with Afghanistan. Two weeks ago, members of a narcotics-smuggling ring - which included a former Tajik government minister and rebel commander - were killed after a skirmish with security forces in the Tavildara Valley, a strategic east-west transit route through Tajikistan and an Islamic stronghold opposed to the government. "The group included several Russian citizens ... aiming to transport large amounts of money through Tajikistan to support terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the government told the press, claiming that...
...attempt to bring calm back to the border, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon will meet in Dushanbe on July 28 to discuss plans to increase regional cooperation on trade and counterterrorism. Russia, which sees Central Asia as its backyard, is especially worried about the uptick in violence along its borders. In the meantime, the Russian government announced early in July that it would be basing rapid-deployment forces in the south of Kyrgyzstan. From there, the forces would be able to respond quickly...
...when the north and south signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the war, they could not agree on the fate of Abyei, a region that sits along the hazy border and is home to several oil fields and an oil pipeline. In a bid to settle the dispute, negotiators drew up clear boundaries for Abyei, put it under joint administration and planned a 2011 referendum for its people to decide their region's fate. (Read "Sudan's Leader Shuts Down Aid Groups...
...signs, though, that Beijing may be slowly changing its policy toward the yuan in ways that could, over time, lead to its greater use on a global scale. Most notably, China and Hong Kong launched a pilot program this month through which Hong Kong banks can begin settling cross-border trade transactions in yuan for selected Chinese companies. This step will likely increase the use of yuan in Hong Kong, one of the world's premier financial centers. (The program also solidifies Hong Kong's role as China's chief financial hub.) This step follows a series of "swap agreements...