MNFTIU also linked to this.

[ 28 June 2004: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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Shelkavenko’s death comes as the U.S. State Department is about to decide whether or not to certify that Uzbekistan has made “substantial and continuing progress” on its human rights commitments, required to qualify the government to receive foreign assistance funds from the United States.

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Yeah. Cheneyfeld are most keen on cultivating the current Uzbek tyrant. We'll see.

However, it seems that they do not always like each other, if I may be forgiven for using the nation-as-person metaphor.

[ 01 July 2004: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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The clearly coordinated blasts in the capital Tashkent came four days after the authoritarian ex-Soviet state, a U.S. ally in the "war on terror", put 15 suspected al Qaeda followers on trial for bomb attacks in March that killed nearly 50 people.

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Both the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Israeli officials have joined Uzbek police probing suicide attacks on the US embassy in Tashkent and other sites, diplomatic sources say. They were the first attacks on foreign missions in the ex-Soviet central Asian state since independence in 1991.

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