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Mongolia's prime minister removes his justice minister 2 days after the prisons chief accused him in public over his driver's relatives
Prime Minister Uchral relieved Justice and Interior Minister S. Amarsaikhan of his post on Wednesday, the government's press office said, because the branch responsible for the country's internal security 'has become unable to operate normally'. On Monday the head of the Court Decision Enforcement General Office, A. Namsamand, had told the media that the minister had his driver's wife and a younger sibling appointed as heads and threatened over other appointments.
Tokayev tells Korean business he will turn Kazakhstan into one big construction site; Ashgabat's state site has yet to post its own president's 13 documents
At a Kazakh-Korean roundtable in Seoul on Tuesday Tokayev put the joint project portfolio at 51 projects worth over $4 billion and invited Korean companies into hospitals, schools, sports facilities and transport. His talks with President Lee were still ahead at this edition; hours after 13 documents were signed at Serdar Berdimuhamedov's summit with Lee, Turkmenistan's state site had posted at least 10 items for the day and none on the summit.
Ashgabat signs 13 documents at the Blue House, from investment protection to the Karakum Canal; Rahmon is the last of 5 presidents to leave for Seoul
Serdar Berdimuhamedov's Tuesday meeting with Lee Jae-myung produced 13 agreements and memorandums, Seoul Economic Daily reported at 12:20 Seoul time, plus a thank-you from Lee for Turkmenistan's help in evacuating Koreans from Iran. Tokayev's turn is the afternoon. Tashkent's 13 from Monday now have contents.
Georgia changes its security chief for the second time in 5 months; a career officer takes the service
Gela Geladze resigned as head of the State Security Service on Monday after four and a half months in the post, and prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze named his deputy, Tamaz Borashvili, to replace him, the first career officer of the service to head it in two decades, in the prime minister’s words. Geladze moves to a deputy minister’s post at the interior ministry he ran until April.
Georgia remands an opposition leader over a television line about the 1992 war, on treason and sabotage charges that carry up to 4 years
Tbilisi City Court on Saturday ordered Giorgi Baramidze, a former defence and interior minister and a member of the United National Movement’s political council, held in pretrial detention, a day after the Prosecutor General’s Office charged him with treason, ‘specifically sabotage’, over a July television interview in which he said Georgian fighters early in the 1992 to 1993 Abkhaz war took no prisoners and shot them. The charge carries up to 4 years; Baramidze told the court his words were misinterpreted.
Mongolia’s parliament closes its budget session one reading short, and reopens on Tuesday to finish the rewrite
The State Great Khural ended the extraordinary session it had called for the 2026 budget rewrite on Monday evening with the amendment passed at second reading and sent back to committee for a third. The regular autumn session opens on 15 September by law, and the rewrite goes first on its agenda, with the 2027 budget after it, ikon.mn reported.
Ashgabat’s Cabinet met by video on Friday and booked a state visit to Seoul
President Serdar Berdimuhamedov held a Cabinet of Ministers sitting by digital link, the government’s site shows inside a post published on Saturday on a state visit to the Republic of Korea for the first Central Asia-Korea summit; a relay of the readout dates the sitting to 11 September and lists a plan for the 35th anniversary of independence among its decisions. The site’s last sitting published under its own heading is dated 28 August.
Uzbekistan’s president takes the chair of the financial centre’s board by his own decree, with his daughter as managing director
A presidential decree on the launch of the Tashkent International Financial Centre makes the head of state the ex officio chairman of its supervisory board and confirms Saida Mirziyoyeva as managing director alongside her post at the head of the presidential administration, UzDaily reported on Saturday evening.
Kyrgyzstan's January election comes with a 1 million som fee that not even the winner gets back
The chairman of the Central Election Commission, Tynchtyk Shainazarov, has set out, in remarks 24.kg published on Friday, how the presidential election of 27 January 2027 will run: a contribution of 1 million som ($11,400) from each candidate's election fund that the budget keeps whatever the result, at least 30,000 signatures with electronic signing through the Tunduk portal allowed, an agitation period from 22 or 23 December, and a vote on a Wednesday instead of a Sunday. Parliament calls the election on 24 September.
A ₮3.5 billion line for a school tied to the family of Mongolia's prime minister surfaces in the budget rewrite, and the ministry has not published the list
A member of the State Great Khural says the government's amendment to the 2026 budget carries 3.5 billion tugrik ($970,000) for the Ikh Zasag King school, which prime minister Nyam-Osoryn Uchral himself calls the school connected to his family. The prime minister says the school asked for nothing, the finance minister says nothing was allocated to it, and the education ministry has yet to publish which schools share the 18 billion tugrik line the sum sits in.
Baku moves the start of work on the Trump route to 2027, 6 days before Armenia's court takes up the deal
Physical work on the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, the road and rail link across Armenia's south between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan agreed in Washington in August 2025, will begin in 2027 instead of before the end of this year, Azerbaijan's foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov told journalists on Wednesday, “according to the latest information”. Ilham Aliyev had put the start at the end of this year or the start of next; Nikol Pashinyan had wanted it in 2026. Armenia's Constitutional Court examines the agreement on 15 September.
Kyrgyzstan's parliament confirms Malik Bekturganov as prosecutor general a day before the appeal verdict on Tashiev
The Jogorku Kenesh approved Malik Bekturganov as prosecutor general on Wednesday morning, 24.kg reported at 10:53 Bishkek time. He has run the office as acting prosecutor general since June and was its first deputy from June 2024. On Thursday the Bishkek City Court is expected to rule on the appeals in the “letter 75” case, where his office is asking 9 years with confiscation for Kamchybek Tashiev and seven others.
Armenia sends the Catholicos back to Armavir, where he is charged with defying one court order
The Court of Cassation has ruled that the criminal case against Garegin II and six bishops belongs to the court of first instance of Armavir province, because the acts charged were committed at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenpress reported at 19:45 on Monday. The charge is a single article: part 2 of article 507 of the criminal code, obstructing the enforcement of a judicial act in force through the use of official powers. Behind it stands one bishop, Gevorg Saroyan, whom the Catholicos defrocked in January while a court order kept him in his post.
The pardoned Russian left Georgia for Yerevan the same evening the court gave him 7 days
Denis Kulanin flew out of Tbilisi on Friday evening and landed at Zvartnots, 8 days after President Mikheil Kavelashvili's pardon and hours after Tbilisi City Court granted the migration department's expulsion motion in a form that let him pick the country. The exit closes a thread that ran from a pardon through a dry hunger strike and a migration-centre cell to a courtroom, and it closes in Armenia, the destination on the ticket that expired while he sat in the centre on 1 September.
A Tbilisi court gives the pardoned Russian 7 days to leave Georgia for a country of his choosing
Tbilisi City Court has granted the migration department's motion on Denis Kulanin in full, and the motion carried its own exit: seven days to leave voluntarily, to any country he picks, with a handover to Russia off the table, as Sova and Meduza read the ruling. The order had not reached the migration service by Friday afternoon, his lawyer said, and he stays in its temporary placement centre until it does.
A day after Tashkent's utilities cleared their own pipes, the city names a leaking gas main
Gas from a 219-millimetre underground main collected in a heating-network chamber under Glinka Street and blew out the asphalt on Thursday, Tashkent's city administration said on Friday. On Thursday the capital's heat, water and gas suppliers had all said the blast had nothing to do with their networks.
Tbilisi's file on a dead Abkhaz activist holds three detainees and two theories
Daur Buava, 30, who left Tkvarcheli for Tbilisi in 2021 and made TikTok videos about Abkhazia joining Georgia, was found dead in a rented flat in Didi Digomi on 27 August. A week on, the Interior Ministry's file holds three detainees and two articles of the criminal code, the drugs version the ministry gave on 29 August is disputed by his lawyer, and Wednesday's protest in Tbilisi carried the line “Daur was killed”.
Astana breaks its silence on the Uzbek scholar, and says Tashkent has been told
Kazakhstan's National Security Committee gave its first public word on the case of Ikboljon Qoraboyev on Thursday, in reply to a Tengrinews request: the pre-trial file is closed to disclosure under article 201 of the criminal procedure code, and “the Uzbek side has been officially notified through diplomatic channels”. Two months into the detention, it is the first confirmation from either government that the case exists.
Tokayev completes his cabinet on day 4 of 10, and changes 3 of its 24 names
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the decrees that fill Kazakhstan's government on Thursday, 4 days into the 10 that the law on government gives a new prime minister. Of the 24 posts under Olzhas Bektenov, 21 keep the people who held them before the August election; the foreign, culture and emergencies ministries change hands.
Khachatryan gets 2 months in the jail that already holds Kocharyan
A Yerevan court ordered Gagik Khachatryan, the former finance minister and tax chief, held for 2 months, Sputnik Armenia and Kommersant reported on Wednesday morning. He goes to the Yerevan-Kentron detention centre, where Robert Kocharyan has been since last week, and the Human Rights Defender has opened an inquiry over a video of him that circulated online.