DUSHANBE, December 3, 2012, Asia-Plus:

November 1                   - Minister of Finance Safarali Najmiddinov met here with Belarusian Ambassador to Tajikistan, Ms. Olga Gavruk.  The sides reportedly exchanged views on prospects of further expansion of bilateral economic cooperation between Tajikistan and Belarus in various fields.  A special attention was paid to implementation of joint projects in Tajikistan, including establishment of enterprise for assembling Belarus-made tractors in the Tajik southern city of Kulob;

- Mobile phone operators functioning in Tajikistan raised tariff on outbound calls to the Russian Federation to US$0.12 per one minute (VAT and 3-percent excise duty included);

- The European Union Delegation to Tajikistan issues a statement regarding the closure of the Association of Young Lawyers ''''Amparo" following a ruling by a court in the northern city of Khujand.

November 2-3                - Mr. Mr. Hans Altherr, President of the Council of States of Switzerland, visited Tajikistan.  During his stay in Dushanbe, he held talks with a number of high-ranking Tajik state officials and attended an opening ceremony of the Clinical Skills Laboratory of the Tajik State Medical University (TSMU) named after Avicenna.  

November 5                   - Uzbek officials announced that three women from the southeastern region of Surkhandaryo have been jailed for spying for Tajikistan, Radio Liberty reports.  A televised statement reportedly said the three women had received between 14 and 15 years in jail.  Investigators say two of the women are Uzbek citizens and the third is a Tajik-born woman without any citizenship.  Investigators say they received payments from the Tajik secret services for information about Uzbek military and law-enforcement buildings.

November 6                  - Tajikistan marked Constitution Day.  

November 7                   - The second information-sharing and consultation meeting with civil society on the Assessment Studies of the proposed Roghun Hydropower Project (HPP) in Tajikistan was held at the World Bank’s Central Asia Regional Office in Almaty and by video- or telephone connections from World Bank Country Offices in Ashgabat, Astana, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Kabul, and Tashkent.  The meeting reportedly focused on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) Screening Report, which identifies the assessment’s methodology and selected critical environmental and social impact factors, as well as the interim findings of the Techno-Economic Assessment Study (TEAS).

November 7-18              - A joint anti-terror exercise for special units of the Ministries of Defense of Tajikistan and Kazakhstan was conducted in the Romit Gorge, Tajikistan.  The purpose of the exercise was to rehearse interaction and coordination in anti-terrorist missions in mountains.

November 8                   - Officers from the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) reportedly seized nearly 145 kilograms of narcotics in two separate operations.  Nearly 9 kilograms of heroin and more than 49 kilograms of hashish were found in a basement of one of apartment buildings in Khujand, the capital of the northern Sughd province and 83.5 kilograms of raw opium were seized by security officers at the Tajik-Afghan border in the Panj district, Khatlon province. 

November 12-13            - A Tajik delegation attended a Regional Ministerial Conference on Counter-narcotics is concluding in Islamabad, Pakistan.  The delegations from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime also participated in the meeting that discussed prospects of regional cooperation in developing pragmatic, comprehensive and sustainable ways of addressing the multifaceted challenge posed by illicit drugs production, demand and trafficking.

November 13                 - President Emomali Rahmon received Ms. Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO (World Health Organization) Regional Director for Europe.  The sides, in particular, discussed cooperation in implementing a new Tajikistan’s national health strategy designed for 2010-2020;   

- A military court in Khatlon province sentenced five Border Guard Service officers to prison terms of between three and 21 years.  The harshest sentence was given to the former chief at the Vakhsh checkpoint on the Tajik-Afghan border, Nizomiddin Yoqubov.  The judge told journalists after the November 13 court session that investigators had found 20 kilograms of hashish in Yoqubov''s office earlier this year.

November 14                 - The lower house (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of the Tajik parliament has approved the national budget for 2013.  The national budget for 2013 reportedly stands at 12.2 billion somoni, which is 2 billion more than the country’s budget for this year;  

- Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) Commander, Maj. Gen. Ken Tovo, visited Tajikistan and met with senior U.S. and Tajik officials on issues of bilateral cooperation and regional interest.  During his visit, Tovo also met with U.S. Ambassador Susan Elliott and discussed areas of continued military cooperation between the two countries, including SOCCENT’s relationship with the Tajik Special Operations Forces.  Tovo also met with senior military officials as he underscored SOCCENT’s support to stability and security in Central Asia.

November 15                 - Tajikistan''s nongovernmental organization, Coalition Against Torture, issued a statement demanding investigations into the alleged mass beatings of prison inmates.  According to the rights group, prison guards brutally beat at least 50 inmates after their transfer from a Dushanbe jail to a prison labor camp in the northern city of Khujand in early November.  The activists say that at least four of the beaten prisoners were witnesses in the September death of an inmate that has received heavy media coverage.  The statement lists six other suspicious deaths in custody.

November 15-16            - An Austrian economic delegation visited in Dushanbe and met with Tajik entrepreneurs to discuss cooperation issues.  The Austrian delegation members included representatives of internationally known companies such as Andtritz Hydro GmbH (supplying electro-mechanical equipment for hydropower plants),  Engel Austria GmbH (plastic processing technology), Kapsch TrafficCom AG (development, implementation and operation of smart traffic telematics solutions), Norbert Schaller GesmbH (equipment for the food industry, technological planning), Schrack Seconet AG (fire alarm systems, communications systems and multimedia solutions), AVK GmbH (the company plans and delivers all sorts of sports equipment for universal game-sports halls), etc.

November 16                 - Russian authorities charged nine suspected members of a banned Islamic group with illegal possession of explosives and ammunition.  Russia''s Interior Ministry said that the nine suspects were detained earlier this month.  They are suspected of being activists the outlawed religious extremist Hizb ut-Tahrir group.  The arrested suspects are citizens of Russia and Tajikistan.  Investigators say five suspects are leaders of Hizb ut-Tahrir''s units in Moscow and other Russian regions.

November 16-19            - President Emomali Rahmon visited the northern Sughd province to participate in celebrations dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the 16th session of the Shuroi Oli (Supreme Council) of Tajikistan.

November 17-19            - Mr. Abulhasan Faghih, Head of the Red Crescent Society of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Ms. Fatima Gilani, Secretary General of the Afghan Red Cross Society (ARCS), visited Tajikistan.  During their stay in Tajikistan, Abulhasan Faghih and Fatima Gilani held talks with representatives of the Tajik Government, employees and volunteers of RCST and representatives of the Delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to Tajikistan.  They also got acquainted with the process of training of employees of RCST’s branch in Qurghon Teppa (Khatlon province) and attended official ceremonies of opening of international center of the RCSs of Tajikistan and Iran in the Varzob district and joint hospital in Dushanbe. 

November 19-21            - A delegation of the World Trade Organization (WTO), led by Mr. Chiedu Osakwe, Director, Accessions Division, WTO Secretariat was in Tajikistan.  During his stay in Dushanbe, Mr. Osakwe met with high-ranking Tajik state officials to discuss issues related to Tajikistan’s admission to the World Trade Organization.

November 20                 - The chief of a Dushanbe-based company involved in arranging Tajik labor migrants'' trips to Saudi Arabia was sentenced to 10 years in prison.  Nasrullo Zamonov was found guilty of fraud after being arrested in April when more than 90 clients of his Zamoni Yunus company filed lawsuits against him.  Zamonov was accused of taking fees of between $400 and $4,500 from each client and promising to organize their emigration to Saudi Arabia, but failing to do so.

November 21-22            - The 2nd Meeting of Heads of Anticorruption Agencies and Ombudsmen of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Member Nations took place in Dushanbe.  Heads of anticorruption agencies and ombudsmen from Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey attended the meeting that endorsed the Statue of the Regional Center for Cooperation of Anticorruption Agencies and Ombudsmen of the ECO Member Nations (RCCAO).

November 24                 - Tajikistan marked National Flag Day.

November 25                 - A campaign formally entitled “The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence” was launched in Tajikistan.

November 25-26            - Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimov heading a Tajik delegation was on a working visit to China.  His meeting with Chinese Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu resulted in signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between the Ministry of Interior (MoI) of Tajikistan and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of China.  While in Beijing, Tajik delegation also visited the Beijing Traffic Safety Research Center and the Special Police College.

November 26                 - A number of Internet providers in Tajikistan blocked access to the Facebook social network.  Access to the website was reportedly stopped following a request by the country''s communications service agency.  The head of Tajikistan''s state-run communications service agency, Be Zuhurov, says access to Facebook was blocked at the request of the public.  Beg Zuhurov said he had received “appeals from representatives of society and many phone calls from distressed people" complaining about the "filth and slander” on the social-media site.

November 28-29            - intergovernmental negotiations between Tajikistan and Germany on financial and technical cooperation took place in Dushanbe.  Co-chaired by Saidrahmon Nazriyev, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Tajikistan and Andreas Gis, Head of Division, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the meeting reportedly considered issues related to the current cooperation and determining new directions of economic cooperation between the two countries for a two-year period.

November 29                 - Ms. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy also Vie-President of the European Commission visited Tajikistan.  During her stay in Dushanbe, the EU foreign-policy chief met with high-ranking Tajik state officials to discuss cooperation issues.  Ms. Ashton signed an agreement aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of Tajik agribusiness.  This program with the value of € 16 million is expected to help the development of agricultural sector in Tajikistan as well as the implementation of the Government''s agenda for agricultural reform. It will be implemented in cooperation with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development;

- The website of Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service was blocked on the Internet in Tajikistan.  Several leading service providers reportedly received SMS messages from Tajikistan''s state-run communications service agency requesting the blockage.  Beg Zuhurov, the head of Tajikistan''s state Communications Service, confirmed the site had been blocked.  He said the authorities acted in response to complaints from a group of concerned citizens who expressed objections about "a series of information agencies that work against the interests of Tajikistan."

November 30                 - The U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe expressed concern about Tajik authorities’ decision to block access to Facebook, Radio Ozodi, and other Internet news sites.  A statement, released by the Embassy in particular, notes that “the United States believes that the right of individuals to express their views freely is universal, whether exercised in a public square or on the Internet.”  “We urge the Government of Tajikistan to respect individual rights to freedom of expression and lift its restriction on Facebook, Radio Ozodi, and other blocked news sites,” the statement said.