Word: centrally
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...crossroads between east and west in the desert nation of Turkmenistan, a quiet battle is under way for natural gas, oil and influence, and the U.S. and Europe are losing out to China and the Muslim world. There's a lot at stake: the Central Asian country has the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil reserves, putting it in the same energy league as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq. Plus, its position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to NATO as it seeks more reliable supply routes to its troops on the ground...
...Western observer put it, "a rain of dollars." In June, the Islamic Development Bank - a lender in which Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran hold the three largest stakes - agreed to build a railroad connecting Turkmenistan and Iran, the first direct rail link between the Islamic Republic and Central Asia. "As of today, our relations with the Islamic bank have really been activated," Tuvakmammed Japarov, the country's deputy prime minister for the economy, tells TIME. In December, he adds, Turkmenistan will meet with other Arab funding institutions "to discuss a range of other projects...
...truck food and other supplies from Europe to its troops in Afghanistan via Russia and Turkmenistan, but have been consistently rebuffed. The U.S. has only been given permission to fly humanitarian supplies through Turkmen airspace - but no military hardware. Earlier this year, Gen. David Petreaus, chief of the U.S. Central Command, met with Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who became Turkmenistan's new President when Niyazov died in 2006, but was unable to persuade him to open his country even a crack to the U.S. military...
...Rican President Oscar Arias, who had overseen talks to try and get Zelaya back into the presidential palace. With those attempts apparently failing, sanctions and isolation of Honduras now will only punish an already poor country, Arias said. "Why do we want to make Honduras into the Burma of Central America? Why do we want a second Hurricane Mitch?" he told...
...calmer than in first weeks following the coup, when soldiers and police fought pitched battles with protesters and a curfew locked down the country at night. The pro-Zelaya marches of tens of thousands have dissipated, leaving only a few hundred die-hard supporters chanting in the central plaza. But many people are wary that with the election, violence will flare again. And a steady stream of bombs, while causing no deaths, have been found outside government buildings, on buses and even in the walls of school houses. The de-facto government blames them on the pro-Zelaya resistance...