Washington cannot decide where Central Asia belongs. Is it part of Europe? Asia? The Middle East? The confusion is on full display in how the House of Representatives has reassigned the region across subcommittees in rapid succession. In the 116th Congress, which convened in 2019, Central Asia fell under the...
On May 7, the Turkmen-American Business Cooperation Association (TABCA) and the Embassy of Turkmenistan in Washington marked the organization’s official launch through a series of daylong events attended by members of the business community, diplomats, and dignitaries, including senior representatives from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Serving as a definitive...
On May 8, the Pentagon released the first batch of U.S. Department of War files on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), including a State Department cable describing a 1994 sighting by Tajik Air pilots over Kazakhstan. The new archive, called the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, was created...
For the first time in its history, the European Union held a full summit with Armenia. The meeting, which took place in Yerevan on 4–5 May 2026, was not merely a diplomatic milestone for Armenia. It also sent a signal to governments thousands of kilometers away in Central Asia that...
The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) 59th Annual Meeting concluded in the historic Uzbek city of Samarkand after four days of discussions focused on energy connectivity, climate financing, and economic resilience across Asia and the Pacific. Held from May 3 to 6, the gathering brought together government officials, development institutions, economists,...
One evening, sitting beside my grandmother, we opened an old photo album, the kind with thick pages and photographs tucked carefully beneath thin plastic sheets. We turned the pages slowly. At one photograph, she stopped. It showed her as a young girl beside a close relative she rarely speaks about,...
Russia’s Victory Day parade on May 9 is set to be more restrained this year, with tanks, armored vehicles, and missile systems absent from Red Square for the first time in nearly two decades. The Russian Defense Ministry cited the “current operational situation,” while the Kremlin blamed what it called...
Speaking at a traditional ceremony ahead of Defender of the Fatherland Day, celebrated in Kazakhstan on May 7, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said the country must reform its armed forces within the next two years. “Our country must be prepared to prevent various challenges and respond to any threats. Therefore, we...