Uzbekistan

TASHKENT, Feb 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Uzbekistan’s population is now over 34 million, after increasing by 100,000, since the beginning of the year.

According to the country’s statistics committee, the population of men is roughly 17.10 million and women 16.90 million.

Uzbekistan is a former Soviet republic, with the biggest population in Central Asia.

TASHKENT (Reuters) - Uzbek police have detained 21 people suspected of being linked to an Islamist militant group operating in Syria, police said on Wednesday.

Police said the detained men were under the “ideological influence” of another Uzbek man who was a member of the Katiba al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group comprised mostly of Central Asians.

They planned to finance the group and join it, police said in a statement.

TASHKENT (Reuters) - Uzbekistan is sending 40 tonnes of protective suits, masks and gloves to virus-hit China, the Central Asian nation’s government said on Wednesday, as a fully loaded military cargo plane departed Tashkent.

Uzbekistan’s government has stopped all regular flights to China, its major trade partner and investor, due to an outbreak of a new coronavirus, which emerged there late last year. Chinese authorities have reported shortages of protective medical equipment.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) — For the past four days, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been calling for authoritarian governments in eastern Europe and Central Asia to ease restrictions on press freedom despite criticism for his own treatment of journalists at home.

In Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan over the weekend and again on Monday, Pompeo raised human rights issues, including freedom of the press, with his interlocutors and denied any double-standard was at play.

TASHKENT, February 2. /TASS/: US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has arrived in Uzbekistan’s capital city Tashkent to hold talks on bilateral and regional cooperation and take part in a ministerial meeting in the C5+1 (Central Asia-USA) format, the Uzbekforeign ministry said on Sunday.

"US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has arrived in Uzbekistan," the ministry said.

The program of Pompeo’s visit includes talks with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov.

TASHKENT, Jan 22 (NNN-XINHUA) – The legislative chamber and the senate of Uzbekistan’s newly-formed parliament, approved Abdulla Aripov, as the prime minister of the Central Asian nation, in its joint session on Tuesday (yesterday).

Uzbek President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, nominated Aripov as a candidate to lead the government for a new five-year term, noting that he has known him for more than 20 years.

TASHKENT, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The legislative chamber and the senate of Uzbekistan's newly-formed parliament have approved Abdulla Aripov as the prime minister of the Central Asian nation in its joint session on Tuesday.

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has nominated Aripov as a candidate to lead the government for a new five-year term noting that he has known him for more than 20 years.

Aripov, who had served as a deputy prime minister between 2002 and 2012, became prime minister when President Mirziyoyev assumed office following presidential elections in 2016.

TASHKENT, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Uzbekistan's Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade signed project implementation agreements in strategic energy sector with Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's investment and development fund, and its subsidiary Masdar, the ministry's press service said Saturday.

The project agreement signed between Uzbek Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade and United Arab Emirates' Masdar company envisages building of a 400 MW wind farm in Navoi region, southwestern part of Uzbekistan, to be commissioned in two years, according to the statement.

SAMARKAND /Uzbekistan/, November 11. /TASS/: The threat of radical Islam, which is soaring due to the situation in Afghanistan, may bring about a certain rapprochement in relations among Central Asian countries, but it will not result in the emergence of a coalition, the research director of the discussion club Valdai, Fyodor Lukyanov, told TASS on the sidelines of the club’s 10th Asian conference.

SAMARKAND /Uzbekistan/, November 11. /TASS/: A new security system of global nature will be created in Asia as the region becomes stronger, German-Russian Forum Research Director Alexander Rahr said on the sidelines of the Tenth Asian Conference hosted by the Valdai International Discussion Club in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand.