Emma Harden-Wolfson

Higher education in Central Asia blog

  • Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer

    This week, four stories that at first glance appear quite different… The UK’s Telegraph has featured a number of articles on Central Asia recently, and  the report I’d like to bring to your attention now is about the opening of a new British Embassy in Kyrgyzstan. This is, as the newspaper notes, ‘despite budget cutbacks’. Read more

  • Developments in Central Asian higher education, part 2: Kyrgyzstan

    Today, Kyrgyzstan swore in Almazbek Atambayev as its new President, the first peaceful transition of power in the country. Молодцы! This was an historic moment and widely reported: I liked stories on MSNBC and the ever-reliable BBC, as well as reporting by 24, a Kyrgyz news agency (in Russian). The UAE-based newspaper The Nation rightly praises the Read more

  • Political myth or reality in Kazakhstan?

    I was interested to read a story on the American Washington Post website about the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The article seems intended to be light-hearted but I actually found it a little contradictory. The title makes it clear that the newspaper believes Nazarbayev to be authoritarian and paints a negative picture of his style Read more

  • The end of the affair… for now

    Well, it took two weeks but the Russian and Estonian pilots have today been released from jail after their sentences were reduced to 2,5 years, of which they’ve served six months and the remaining two years were pardoned. Are you surprised? No, I thought not. Me neither. So how will both sides recover from what Read more

  • Straws on a camel’s back

    The “aeroplane affair” between Russia and Tajikistan, as I suspected, shows no sign of landing (excuse the pun) anytime soon. Konstantin Parshin has – again – written an excellent article summarising what’s happened over the last few days, so if you’re not following this story elsewhere (and even if you are), do read what he has to Read more

  • Russian pilots and Tajik workers, or How to lose friends and alienate people

    For the last few weeks, I haven’t had any interesting stories to report under my favourite ‘bureaucratic madness’ category. Central Asia seems to have been a pretty sensible place of late. However, I’m pleased to report that the Tajik government is back on form with a new episode of red tape craziness. As I’ve suggested Read more