Kyrgyzstan

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Several thousand people tried to storm a university in Kyrgyzstan yesterday in a burst of ethnic violence that left at least two people dead and more than 70 wounded, prompting the interim government to call a local state of emergency. Witnesses in the southern town of Jalal-Abad said thousands of ethnic Kyrgyz advanced on the private university that serves as the center of the minority Uzbek community. They said gunfire broke out as crowds approached a building encircled by special security forces.

The president of Kyrgyzstan says keeping the U.S. air base in his country beyond June 2014 depends on how developments in Afghanistan affect regional stability as well as increases in rental payments. Almazbek Atambayev told public broadcasters on Wednesday that the fate of Manas Transit Center would be decided in the former Soviet Central Asian nation's best interests. All U.S. troops moving in and out of nearby Afghanistan travel through Manas. Large numbers of troops are set to come home in 2014 as the war winds down.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - The front-runner in Kyrgyzstan's presidential election looked set for an unexpectedly crushing victory early today, prompting bitter accusations of fraud in a vote that was supposed to put the country on a firmer footing after an uprising last year overthrew the government. With 88 percent of precincts counted, Almazbek Atambayev, a businessman and former prime minister, was leading the field with 63 percent of the vote in the former Soviet Central Asian nation.

AK-ZHOL CROSSING, Kyrgyzstan - The bottleneck of grime-splattered cars and trucks loaded with food supplies and industrial goods snaked in both directions over the Chui River. For centuries this outpost in Central Asia was a stop along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route from the Far East to Arabia. At dusk on a recent Tuesday, it was one point in a vast monitoring network being set up across the former Soviet Union and beyond to detect illicit nuclear materials that could fall into the hands of terrorists.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- While warplanes looped in the clear skies above, President Vladimir Putin yesterday opened Russia's first new military base on foreign soil since the Soviet collapse. Putin said the move would strengthen security in volatile Central Asia, but it is widely seen as Moscow's response to the US presence only 30 miles away. " We believe [the base] will create a good basis for cooperation and will be a factor for deterring terrorists," Putin said. Secular governments in Central Asia have been struggling in recent years with radical Islamic groups.

OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Ethnic riots spread in southern Kyrgyzstan yesterday, forcing thousands of Uzbeks to flee as their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men. The interim government begged Russia for troops to stop the violence, but the Kremlin offered only humanitarian assistance. At least 77 people were reported killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the violence spreading across the impoverished Central Asian nation that hosts US and Russian air bases. Much of its second-largest city, Osh, was on fire yesterday and the sky overhead was black with smoke.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Opposition supporters and police formed joint patrols in a southern city, and President Askar Akayev said yesterday he would not impose a state of emergency despite protests calling for his resignation over allegations of fraud in parliamentary elections. A day after stone-throwing demonstrators stormed government buildings in southern Kyrgyzstan to underline their demand that he resign, both sides in the Central Asian nation's tense standoff appeared intent on reestablishing calm.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Interim authorities in Kyrgyzstan have called for the deposed president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, to be extradited from Belarus to face trial back home for allegedly sanctioning gunfire on a crowd of protesters. Bakiyev fled Kyrgyzstan after being overthrown amid violent clashes between government troops and demonstrators on April 7 that left at least 85 people dead. He has taken refuge in Belarus. Kyrgyzstan’s interim government adviser, Dzhoomart Saparbayev, said yesterday that officials adopted a resolution stripping Bakiyev of his authority...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Absamat Masaliyev, a former leader of Kyrgyzstan who headed the Central Asian nation's Communist Party before and after the Soviet collapse, died Saturday of a heart attack, the government said yesterday. He was 71. In 1985, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Kyrgyzstan after changes in the Soviet Communist leadership that saw Mikhail Gorbachev take power in Moscow. He remained in office until 1990, when he was defeated in the country's first-ever presidential elections, as the Soviet republics...

TEYIT, Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyzstan’s deposed president yesterday defended the legitimacy of his rule and urged the United Nations to send peacekeepers to help stabilize the strategically vital Central Asian nation. President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said in an interview at his home village in the south of the country that he had not ordered police to fire at protesters in the capital. “My conscience is clear,’’ he said. Bakiyev fled the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday after a protest rally against corruption, rising utility bills, and deteriorating human rights...

The Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan is allowing foreign adoptions to resume, issuing the first permit to a U.S.-based Christian organization. The Social Development Ministry said Monday it chose Christian World Adoption after a rigorous selection process. Christian World Adoption says the move would allow it to resume adoptions from Kyrgyzstan. International adoptions were suspended in Kyrgyzstan in 2009 as authorities sought to improve regulations and root out corruption in the process.

Kyrgyzstan inaugurated a new president Thursday in the first peaceful transition of power in the former Soviet Central Asian nation. Speaking after his swearing-in, Almazbek Atambayev sounded a note of ethnic harmony and called on all political camps to unite to assure Kyrgyzstan's future prosperity. Authorities hope the inauguration will usher in an era of stability, which has eluded the country since the April 2010 overthrow of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. A few months after Bakiyev's ouster, ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities wracked the country's south and...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - Kyrgyzstan's president-elect said yesterday that the US air base needs to close by 2014 because its presence on Kyrgyz soil puts the former Soviet nation at risk of retaliatory strikes from those in conflict with the United States. Almazbek Atambayev, who won over 60 percent of ballots in Sunday's vote, said Kyrgyzstan will honor a contract allowing the United States to lease the Manas base through mid-2014. The United States has used Manas, located within a civilian airport, as a key logistical hub for operations in nearby...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - The front-runner in Kyrgyzstan's presidential election looked set for an unexpectedly crushing victory early today, prompting bitter accusations of fraud in a vote that was supposed to put the country on a firmer footing after an uprising last year overthrew the government. With 88 percent of precincts counted, Almazbek Atambayev, a businessman and former prime minister, was leading the field with 63 percent of the vote in the former Soviet Central Asian nation.

The president of Kyrgyzstan has created an oversight body designed to ensure transparency of rental payments for a U.S. air base in the ex-Soviet Central Asian nation. Roza Otunbayeva's decree issued Tuesday entitles the body to monitor payments by the base to the Kyrgyz government and the money's eventual use. The Manas Air Transit Center was mired in allegations of corruption during the regime of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was deposed in a popular uprising in April 2010.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has urged authorities in Kyrgyzstan to thoroughly investigate the beating of a journalist and punish his assailants. The New York-based media watchdog said Shokhrukh Saipov was beaten Wednesday in the sourthern city of Osh by unidentified attackers, who broke his nose and several teeth. CPJ coordinator Nina Ognianova on Monday urged the Kyrgyz government to stop impunity in crimes against the press. Saipov became the editor and publisher of news website Uzpress after Kyrgyz authorities failed to properly investigate the 2007 killing of his...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - Kyrgyzstan’s Parliament unanimously approved a deal yesterday allowing the United States to continue using an air base crucial to military operations in Afghanistan, sharply shifting course months after ordering American forces out by August. Lawmakers voted 75-0 to ratify the agreement, providing a much-needed boost to the US-led coalition as it ramps up military operations against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants and struggles to maintain other supply routes into Afghanistan.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Protesters stormed the headquarters of a leading political party in the capital of Kyrgyzstan yesterday, ratcheting up tensions a few days ahead of a decisive parliamentary election in the Central Asian country. The protesters seized the building of the nationalist Ata-Zhurt party, which includes several representatives of the government led by former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was ousted during bloody street protests in April. Ata-Zhurt is expected to make a strong showing in Sunday’s election, with independent polls putting it in...

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - A powerful earthquake killed at least 14 people in a heavily populated valley in Central Asia early yesterday, emergency officials said. Almost all the casualties were in Uzbekistan, where officials confirmed 13 deaths. The magnitude 6.1 temblor, centered in Kyrgyzstan, hit shortly after midnight in a mountainous area some 20 miles away from the eastern Uzbek city of Ferghana, which has a population of more than 200,000. So far, no deaths have been reported in Kyrgyzstan itself.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyzstan put its deposed president on trial in his absence yesterday, with prosecutors seeking a long prison term for Kurmanbek Bakiyev on charges that he ordered troops to fire on demonstrators, killing 78 people. As the court hearing began in this Central Asian nation, family members of the victims held angry demonstrations nearby, vowing to seek revenge. Bakiyev, who is in self-imposed exile in Belarus, is being tried along with 27 other former officials for their alleged involvement in the deaths during April street protests that led...