BY AISHA BERDYEVA
Turkmenistan has confirmed that it will directly supply the European Union with 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, EU officials have announced. It’s a relatively minor commitment, but it could lead to a major revision of the Caspian Basin energy equation, breaking Russia’s dominance of export routes. Read More…

Mystery continues to engulf Tajikistan’s first family, which appears preoccupied with a destabilizing power struggle. The continuing uncertainty surrounding the president and his close relatives suggests that a bout of instability could be in the offing for Central Asia’s poorest nation. Read More…

Hoping to emulate the success of Kazakhstan’s “multi-vector” foreign policy, Uzbekistan is seeking to diversify its foreign markets, especially for natural gas and cotton — Tashkent’s major cash crop. In recent weeks, Uzbek officials have registered trade gains with several countries in the Middle East and Asia. Read More…

BY NINA AKHMETELI
An 11-year prison term given in absentia to Georgia’s former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili is prompting fresh debate about the impartiality of the country’s criminal justice system. Read More…

BY MOLLY CORSO
With parliamentary elections just a few months away, little hope is emerging for a breakthrough in an ongoing political standoff between the Georgian government and opposition. Local analysts believe that a hunger strike launched by the opposition in early March will do little to produce a political settlement. Meanwhile, opposition leaders have appealed to the international community for assistance. Read More…

BY GIORGI LOMSADZE
More than a fortnight after death in the United Kingdom, legendary Georgian billionaire and onetime presidential candidate Badri Patarkatsishvili was laid to rest at his palatial residence in Tbilisi on February 28. Though now buried, the controversies that surrounded the tycoon and his business dealings promise to linger on. Read More…

Momentum is building among Caspian Basin governments for a moratorium on sturgeon fishing, in order to protect the lucrative caviar trade. Informal discussions with fishermen, however, suggest that an official ban would be unlikely to halt the dangerous depletion of sturgeon stocks. Read More…

BY GIORGI LOMSADZE
In a new twist in the mysterious ownership saga surrounding Georgia’s Imedi television station, media baron Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has allegedly lost its management rights to the independent broadcaster. The company has not yet responded to the reports. Read More…

BY IGOR TORBAKOV
The last Dmitry to rule in the Kremlin, way back in 1605, savored absolute authority for less than a year before running afoul of Moscow’s power brokers. Suspected of trying to convert Russia to Roman Catholicism, he was denounced as the “False Dmitry,” assassinated, his body burned and his ashes shot out of a cannon pointed toward Poland. Russia’s new Dmitry, Mr. Medvedev, is set to assume Russia’s powerful presidency in a matter of days. His fate will doubtless be less severe than his predecessor’s. Yet, the president-to-be is nevertheless coming to power engulfed by a fog of speculation that raises questions about whether his tenure will be a tranquil one for Russia, and, by extension, for Russia’s near-abroad.
A EurasiaNet Commentary Read More…

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