he financial crises that swept across Asia and Russia in 1998 are reshaping the leadership politics of the former communist countries. In Russia, the financial crisis has marginalized President Boris Yeltsin and brought to the political forefront a previously disenfranchised coalition of traditionalists. Ukraine’s political leadership is leaning in the direction of Europe. The leaders of the co...

Genetic diversity in 403 morphologically distinct landraces of barley (Hordeum vulgare L. subsp. vulgare) originating from seven geographical zones of Asia was studied using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers from regions of medium to high recombination in the barley genome. The seven polymorphic SSR markers representing each of the chromosomes chosen for the study revealed a high level of al...

Cryptops doriae Pocock, 1891 and Scolopendra cingulata Latreille, 1829 are new to the fauna of Uzbekistan, while Polyporogaster porosa (Sseliwanoff, 1881) is Turkmenistan. Pachymerium ferrugineum (C.L. Koch, 1835) Sirdaryo Region, Bothriogaster signata (Kessler, 1874) formally Qashqadaryo Regions Uzbekistan. The full lists chilopod species from Uzbekistan Turkmenistan provided: 22 12 species, r...

Uzbekistan has been one of the most enigmatic of the thirty-plus economies in transition from central planning during the 1990s. The government explicitly avoided the shock therapy advocated by the international financial institutions and also avoided the economic collapse of non-reformers such as Belarus or Turkmenistan. Its economic performance, measured by change in real GDP between 1989 and...

A list of species of Phaonia Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 of Central Asia is given, and four new species of Phaonia are described from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (P. babarabica sp. nov., P. juglans sp. nov., P. modesta sp. nov. and P. ninae sp. nov.). The male terminalia of all species and ovipositors of P. ninae sp. nov. and P. modesta sp. nov. are figured. Previous literature on the g...

The historical distribution of the cheetah Acinonyx jubatus extended from Africa through the Arabian Peninsula into Iran and Afghanistan. From there, the range continued eastwards to Pakistan and India, and northeast through Central Asia: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan (Nowell & Jackson 1996). During the Middle Ages, cheetahs also occurred to the west of the Caspian Sea, in Transcaucas...

New records of geophilomorph centipedes (Geophilidae, Himantariidae, Mecistocephalidae, and Schendylidae) from Middle Asia are provided. Order Geophilomorpha is new to both the Surxondaryo Region Uzbekistan Balkan Turkmenistan. Family Geophilidae, genus Pachymerium C.L. Koch, 1847, P. ferrugineum (C.L. 1835) Issyk-Kul Kyrgyzstan, Districts Republican Subordination Tajikistan, Uzbekistan; family...

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has emerged as a major threat to TB control, particularly in the former Soviet Union. To determine levels of drug resistance within a directly observed treatment strategy (DOTS) program supported by Médecins Sans Frontières in two regions in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, Central Asia, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of smear-positive TB patients in...

This paper focuses on inequality in living standards across oblasts and regions within Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Regional inequality is an important area of research and policy development. Inequality in income and consumption are logical outcomes in a market-based economic system. If inequality within countries exists because of barriers to compe...