OLIVIER MATTHYS/AFP/Getty Images

Today is April 28, which might not seem like that big a deal unless you live in Turkmenistan. Along with some other eccentric initiatives, the country's late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov decided in 1999 to rename all the months after himself and members of his family. January was called Turkmenbashi, or "Father of the Turkmen," which was Niyazov's preferred title. April became Gurbansoltan, his mother's name.

Needless to say, this caused some confusion. The new names were mostly used for official documents. An initiative has now been introduced in the parliament to restore the original names and Turkmenistan's new president, the notably less insane Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, appears receptive to the idea.

Berdymukhammedov seems anxious to change his country's reputation as the North Korea of Central Asia by establishing economic ties with Europe and slowly dismantling his predecessor's personality cult. Changing back the calendar is a good step, but Turkmenistan can't really turn the corner until the government is willing to acknowledge the more serious crimes of Niyazov's brutal regime.

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The European Union just took what it hopes will be a crucial step toward escaping its dependence on Russian natural gas.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told the Financial Times that Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov (left) promised last week to supply the EU with 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year in addition to what it is already supplying to Russia and China. The EU has been pushing hard for a deal like this ever since the death of Turkmenistan's former leader, the lunatic isolationist Saparmurat Niyazov.

The only problem is, no one is exactly sure how they're going to get the gas to Europe:

There were three short-term options, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner said. One would be to close a 60km gap between Azeri and Turkmen offshore installations with a mini-pipeline. Another would be to build an onshore link to Kazakhstan, to connect with a route to Azerbaijan. The third would be to compress the gas into liquid form and take it by tanker across the sea.

The hope is that Turkmen gas fields can eventually supply the proposed Nabucco pipeline across Turkey. Unfortunately, the first leg of the pipeline won't be operational until at least 2013. (China, on the other hand, will have its own Turkmen pipeline up and running by next year.)

According to Eurasianet, the Russian response has been muted, with analysts pointing out that given Europe's 500 bcm yearly gas needs, 10 bcm is small potatoes:

For example, the Rosbalt news agency quoted Alexander Shtok, a Moscow economic analyst, as asserting that EU officials had sought a greater commitment from Berdymukhamedov. Thus, the EU mission to Ashgabat was "unsuccessful," Shtok contended. Other experts, citing Turkmenistan’s tangled involvement in the Russian-sponsored Prikaspiisky pipeline, say that Berdymukhamedov can be quick to agree on a deal, but is capable of stalling when it comes to implementation.

Ferrero-Waldner acknowledged that the commitment was not a "vast quantity" but described it as a "very important first step." Given that most of Turkmenistan's reserves have not been developed, and those that have been are under contract until 2028, a lot more big steps are going to be needed if Europe plans to break its Russian gas habit.

Though, if it doesn't work out, there's always Iran.

Back in September, Rand analyst Seth Jones helped us put together a list of senior al Qaeda leaders who were still at large. The list included senior commander Abu Obaidah al-Masri who, it was announced this week, died about two months ago. I spoke with Jones today about the implications of al-Masri's death for the al Qaeda leadership. He stressed that it's a mistake to think of the organization as a bureaucracy where specific offices are filled after they are vacated:

People get moved around quite a bit based on their competencies. Less-informed people talk about al Qaeda leadership in terms of numbers, as if someone was "number three or number four." I don't think the command and control structure works that way. There's a range of people who go through the different positions. There is not one job that any of these guys do. 

But this is not to say that al-Masri's death is insignificant. He played a major part in several high-profile operations and, as Jones noted, it can be hard to find someone with his particular skillset:

He played an important role both on the international front in the [2006] transatlantic plot, and was involved in a couple of other plots that European government are investigating. Recently he also played quite an important role with the Afghan insurgency. It takes time to replace competent senior al Qaeda operatives.

This is still developing, but a senior U.S. counterterrorism official is saying that al Qaeda operative Abu Obaidah al-Masri has died of natural causes.

In September, al-Masri made our list of major al Qaeda figures who are still at large and was described by Rand Corporation terrorism analyst Seth Jones as “probably the most active and most important” figure we included. He played a major role in coordinating attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and is thought to have been one of the architects of the foiled 2006 trans-Atlantic airliner plot. This is a significant loss for al Qaeda.

It turns out the global food-price crisis that we've been following has a silver lining: Growing wheat is now more profitable than growing heroin for Afghan farmers.

(Hat tip: Paul Krugman)

MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images

Training for the Olympics is tough, but dodging sniper bullets usually isn't part of a day's workout for most athletes. Unless you're Iraqi sprinter Dana Hussein Abdul-Razzaq. She and three other Iraqis so far have qualified for this summer's Olympics, and they are doggedly determined to keep training despite the lack of resources and security. Abdul-Razzaq doesn't have proper running shoes, and she trains on a pockmarked track that she isn't officially allowed to use. She and her coach regularly get caught up in sniper fire on the way to and from training.

Meanwhile, archer Ali Adnan, who was attacked by militants linked to al Qaeda in 2006, practices mainly in his backyard; it's too difficult to travel in and out of his neighborhood. These Iraqi athletes, as well the Afghan athletes featured in FP's recent photo essay, "The Olympians of Afghanistan," have definitely got the Olympic spirit.

CLAUS FISKER/AFP/Getty Images

At the current NATO summit, countries' troop contributions to the effort in Afghanistan has been a hot topic. Last week's FP List "Who's Left in Afghanistan?" listed the top five and bottom five countries in terms of the number of troops they had committed to Afghanistan. At the time, the top five were the United States (29,000 troops), Britain (7,800), Germany (3,210), Italy (2,880), and Canada (2,500), while the bottom five were Singapore (2 troops), Austria (2, sometimes 3), Ireland (7), Luxembourg (9), and Iceland (13*).

But these numbers can be somewhat misleading when it comes to determining who is pulling their weight, given that, for example, the U.S. population is about 1,000 times that of Iceland. So, another measure would be troop contributions relative to military-age population (defined as those between 20 and 39 years old**). When expressed this way, using updated troop numbers, it's tiny Denmark that comes out on top!

The Top 5 (troops per 1,000 people 20-39 years old):

1. Denmark -- 0.55
2. Britain -- 0.47
3. Norway -- 0.43
4. Netherlands -- 0.39
5. United States -- 0.35***

The Bottom 5 (troops per 1,000 people 20-39 years old):

1. Ukraine -- 0.0002
2. Georgia -- 0.0008
3. Austria -- 0.0009
4. Singapore -- 0.0016
5. Ireland -- 0.0053

Yet another way to crunch the numbers would be to look at troop fatalities relative to the military-age population. (Just the top five, and not the bottom five, are listed here because there are several countries with zero fatalities.) Sadly for Denmark, it's at the top again:

The Top 5 (troop fatalities per 1,000 people 20-39 years old):

1. Denmark -- 0.0099
2. Canada -- 0.0090
3. Britain -- 0.0056 (includes Ministry of Defense civilians)
4. Estonia -- 0.0053
5. United States -- 0.0051 (includes fatalities in Pakistan and Uzbekistan)

Americans aren't the only ones with housing woes. The global credit crunch is hitting the Kazakh construction industry hard, and new homebuyers in the once booming economy are finding themselves with big mortgages on houses and apartments that construction companies can't afford to finish:

Kazakh construction companies had sold 280 billion tenge ($2.32 billion) of unfinished apartments by September, including 170 billion tenge financed by mortgages, according to government statistics.

"There was a sense the boom was going to go on,'' said Anna Walker, a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. "Then, almost overnight, lending to the banks from overseas dried up.'' [...]

"The problems that hit the Kazakh construction industry are due to the world financial crisis,'' said Aigul Aspandiarova, spokeswoman for the mayor's office in Almaty. "It's obvious that [major construction company] Kuat won't complete its projects on time.''

There are going to be a lot of stories like this before we climb out of this financial crisis.

Canada's forces in southern Afghanistan are getting a boost from the U.S. Marine Corps:

Roughly 1,100 of the 3,200 U.S. marines due in Afghanistan have already arrived for what's scheduled to be a seven-month tour in the war-ravaged country, where they are expected to buttress badly stretched Canadian resources. "I think everyone has embraced us, the Canadians in particular," Col. Peter Petronzio, the unit's commanding officer, said Monday.

The deployment is a stop-gap to bolster the Canadians, who have been battling insurgents and insisted on help as a condition of extending their deployment. After Germany, Spain, and several other NATO states refused (again) to send troops south, the U.S. offered a Marine unit. For the next seven months, the North Americans will be fighting shoulder to shoulder in the province. Hell, if the Mexicans chip in a brigade, Kandahar could join NAFTA.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

In recent weeks, the Taliban have threatened to burn down cellular towers throughout Afghanistan unless the main wireless companies shut down service between 5 p.m. and 3 a.m. each night. Why? Taliban commanders are convinced that coalition forces are using the cell networks to track their fighters. (They don't seem to understand that while coalition forces might use the Afghan mobile networks for some intel, they certainly aren't dependent on them. Thank you, spy satellites.)

And now they've made good on their threat. In a country that is nearly wholly reliant on wireless communications (for lack of any land-line infrastructure), the main mobile networks (all privately run) have begun switching off service at night after attacks on 10 cell towers, the latest on Tuesday night. Score this round for the Taliban.

I can only hope that the frustration of not being able to make calls past dusk will inspire public condemnation of the men who forced the blackout. But then again, the government vowed to help the private sector stand up to Taliban pressure. And that unsuccessful stand hardly inspires confidence.

I'll bet you thought Nepal's glory days as a hippie destination were over:

PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images

A Sadhu (Hindu holy man) smokes ganja (marijuana) in a chillum (traditional clay pipe) as a holy offering from lord Shiva, Hindu god of creation and destruction during celebrations of the Maha Shivaratri festival at the Pashupatinath temple area in Kathmandu, on March 4, 2008. Thousands of sages and holy men visit Nepal's biggest hindu temple Pashupatinath during the Maha Shivaratri festival each year.

KAREN MINASYAN/AFP/Getty Images

Protests against what looks like a stolen election in Armenia turned ugly over the weekend, with riot police cracking down harshly on demonstrators. Eight people died and more than 130 were wounded in the clashes, and the government has declared a state of emergency. But among the chaos, Sabrina Tavernese of the New York Times found some absurd moments:

The officers withdrew from the crowded areas toward midnight, leaving strange scenes in the moonlight. An elaborately decorated cake was atop an upside-down car; loaves of bread spilled out of an open trunk of a car on its side. Drunken men gobbled up expensive chocolates.

"The owner of this store is a very bad person," said Arsen Sarkisyan, 20, who was walking out with a bag of sour cream containers.

ANDRIY MOSIENKO/AFP/Getty Images

Nearly everybody hates cockroaches. But apparently none more so than Turkmenistan's post-Turkmenbashi (Saparmurat Niyazov) president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. The Guardian reports:

For the viewers of Turkmenistan's popular nightly news programme, Vatan, it was another routine bulletin. But as the newsreader began the 9pm broadcast, viewers across the central Asian country spotted something unusual crawling across the studio table: a large brown cockroach.

The cockroach managed to complete a whole lap of the desk, apparently undetected, before disappearing. The programme, complete with cockroach, was repeated at 11pm that night. ...

[T]he consequences of this particular cockroach's impromptu five minutes of fame were immediate and severe.

The country's president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, took news of the insect so badly that he responded by firing no fewer than 30 workers from the main state TV channel, the news website Kronika Turkmenistan reported yesterday.

Those fired included journalists, directors, camera operators, and technical staff.

President Berdymukhamedov has been praised for his efforts at ending Turkmenistan's isolation from the international community, and for reversing a number of Turkmenbashi's quirky laws, which include banning opera performances and disallowing foreign languages in school curriculum.

But cockroaches, it seems, warrant special measures. "Berdymukhamedov's apparent dislike of cockroaches may have something to do with his previous career as a dentist," the Guardian's Luke Harding speculates. Even so, Berdymukhamedov's extreme reaction suggests that Turkmenistan's days of mercurial leadership may not be over just yet.

An international jury recently announced the winners of the prestigious World Press Photo Contest for 2007. Here are the best of the best, reprinted with permission.

World Press Photo of the Year 2007
Tim Hetherington, UK, for Vanity Fair
American soldier resting at bunker, Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, 16 September

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Next -->

In case you missed Lee Kuan Yew's wide-ranging interview with veteran journalist and international man of mystery Arnaud de Borchgrave, here's a choice quote:

The United States, said this key player in every major Asian event for almost half a century, "should realize Afghanistan cannot succeed as a democracy. You attempted too much. Let the warlords sort it out in such a way you don't try to build a new state. The British tried and failed. Just make clear if they commit aggression again and offer safe haven to Taliban, they will be punished."

This week, U.S. Central Command chief Adm. William J. Fallon is quietly reaching out to everyone's favorite Central Asian dictatorships: Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Uzbekistan, you may recall, is the country with which the Pentagon broke off a basing agreement back in 2005, not long after government forces massacred nearly 200 civilians in the eastern Uzbek town of Andijan and U.S.-Uzbek relations went sour. Tentative contacts between the two countries have been underway since late September, though, as the U.S. military has grown increasingly concerned about the situation in Afghanistan and its supply lines in Pakistan. The United States is also seeking to undercut Russia's ability to play hardball with Central Asian energy resources, and rescue pipeline projects that have been threatened by savvy Russian and Iranian moves. So what it Uzbek President-for-life Islam Karimov boils dissidents alive and has unarmed civilians gunned down in the streets? He's in a strategic location.

Fallon has previously denied suggestions that the United States would reopen its air base in Uzbekistan. And so far, it appears that nothing substantive has come of Fallon's Thursday meeting with Karimov. Of course, that's normal with these types of touchy, under-the-radar missions.

Today, Fallon was in the capital of Turkmenistan, trying to woo that country's new leader:

In particular, Washington is keen to secure Ashgabat's participation in the long-planned Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP), a route that would circumvent Russia... Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has expressed interest in the project, but has yet to make any firm commitment.

Turkmenistan is also in a bit of a spat with neighboring Iran over gas prices, so perhaps Fallon is sensing an opportunity to bring Berdymukhamedov into the anti-Tehran camp. But as I'm sure the admiral well knows, Central Asian leaders are wily negotiators with a history of using Western powers to gain leverage with Moscow. They might just be hinting at warmer ties with Washington in order to get what they want from the Russians. So, on which level is this great game is being played?

On January 3, the 46th most-searched term on Google was "Iowa caucasus." You know, those Iowa Caucasus that are tucked between Azerbaijan and Armenia. 

(Hat tip: gurBlogs)

With Vladimir Putin newly christened as Time's "Person of the Year" and oil prices still high, it's probably a safe bet that Russia will keep flexing its diplomatic muscles in 2008. One area to watch is the U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMD) program, which roiled U.S.-Russian relations throughout 2007. At issue is the U.S. decision to place ten BMD interceptors in Poland and a related decision to place a BMD radar facility in the Czech Republic.

Contention over U.S. BMD proposals in Europe has been simmering at least since May of 2006, but the war of words ratcheted up a notch last week when, following "disappointing" talks with the United States, Russian Army Chief of Staff Yuri Baluevsky said that using the interceptors based in Poland could trigger a retaliatory strike from Russia. Presumably he was referring to the possibility that the Russian early warning radars would mistake the interceptors as part of a nuclear attack. That could conceivably spur a hair-trigger response from Russia, which, if it happened, could involve massive nuclear retaliation.

Yet Russia's threat isn't as credible as it may seem. First, the reliability of the Russian early warning system—consisting of radar installations and satellites—is highly questionable. While Russia's concerns about not being able to distinguish between an offensive missile launch and a defensive interceptor launch are valid, there are also valid concerns that the Russian system would not be able to detect either type of launch reliably.

Second, BMD interceptors are fundamentally a defensive weapon. They will launch only in response to an attack or missile launch elsewhere (the United States claims its nascent system is aimed at Iran, but interceptors based in Poland could also block missiles from Russia). The interceptors alone therefore could not be mistaken for a threat to Russia. For that, a launch of offensive missiles would be required. 

Russia's real concern is probably twofold. First, BMD interceptors in Poland might block Russian missiles and limit Russia's freedom of action. Baluevsky's recent statement may actually be intended to derail the U.S. basing plan by raising the specter of nuclear attack in Poland, since public opinion there is already skeptical of the U.S. proposal. Second, Russia has long sought to keep NATO and the United States out of the former Soviet "sphere of influence." Missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic may bring the alliance too close to Russian territory for comfort. And it looks as if the Russian bear still knows how to growl, at least.

iStockphoto.com

Earlier this month, Passport noted that a Swedish consulting firm had calculated that Santa Claus should begin his worldwide toy-delivery journey in the mountains of northern Kyrgyzstan—at latitude (N) 40.40°, longitude (E) 74.24°, to be exact—to maximize efficiency of distribution and minimize strain on his reindeer.

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan have become quite excited by the prospect that Father Christmas might be relocating from the North Pole (now claimed by the Russians anyway) to their Central Asia country. They're apparently so excited that they've decided to name one of their many unnamed peaks "Mount Santa Claus." A group of mountain climbers is scaling the lucky peak, and on Christmas Eve, in an official ceremony at the summit, it will bury a capsule containing the Kyrgyz flag.

Why would a former Soviet country that's 75 percent Muslim be so embracing of Saint Nicholas? Answer: It's a way to promote tourism to the isolated, but beautifully mountainous, country. An international Santa Claus conference is already being organized for the summer. Maybe it's time to repaint Santa's mailbox.

Der Spiegel online has posted a candid interview with Germany's top military officer in Afghanistan. He admits that Germany needs to do more, mainly by getting rid of the caveats that restrict where German soldiers can go and what functions they can perform (Germans are posted mainly in the relatively stable north of the country):

The limitations that the Germans have placed upon themselves are not regarded as optimal here. If a country takes over reconstruction responsibilities, its teams can, in an emergency, be replaced by reserve units if the Afghans go into battle. That's what we're really talking about here. When all the countries on a mission go into conflict areas and then a few of them say that they're only going to do something very specific, it becomes difficult.

He also doesn't have much patience for the argument, heard so often in Europe, that the war-fighting element of the mission (largely but not exclusively done by the American-led force called OEF) is getting in the way of gentler peacekeeping and uncontroversial reconstruction.

It bothers the Americans when Europeans accuse them of waging the war in a brutal fashion. If there were no OEF, the insurgency would gain strength in the country and they would consider themselves unopposed here, which could also threaten ISAF's success. Here at ISAF we don't have the forces to go after the extremists alone.

Maybe somebody in the Green Party will listen.