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Anti-corruption officers reach the Kocharyans before parliament resumes
Armenia's Anti-Corruption Committee searched addresses of Robert Kocharyan and his family on Tuesday morning and took the former president to its offices, a day after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told his son from the parliament floor that the family would return its wealth “piece by piece”. The committee has not named the case.
The price of shipping Kazakh oil eases off its record
The Baltic Exchange's weekly report has the Novorossiysk-to-Augusta Suezmax run settling Thursday at WS532, a round trip earning "just under $400,000" a day, almost 40 Worldscale points off in a week.
Pashinyan asks parliament to found the Fourth Republic
Nikol Pashinyan presented the 2026-2031 government programme to the National Assembly on Monday as a change of state: "the Republic of Armenia is transitioning to the historical phase we call the Fourth Republic", built to deliver peace, freedom and security inside 29,743 square kilometres.
Five parties are in, and the observers split over the count
Kazakhstan's election commission gave the Kurultai vote its first official numbers on Monday: Adilet at 71.17%, five parties past the 5% bar, turnout trimmed overnight to 74.08%. By evening the OSCE's mission had assessed more than a third of the counts it watched negatively, while the CIS, SCO and Turkic missions cleared the vote in full.
Two Afghans die crossing the Pyanj, Tajikistan's border service says
Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security says border guards killed 2 Afghan citizens who crossed the river at Fatkhobod in the southern district of Jaikhun, ignored demands to stop and put up armed resistance. The guards recovered 17.3 kilograms of hashish, a Kalashnikov rifle and a Makarov pistol.
Avaza pins three summits to three October days
Turkmenistan's government site lists the dates of the autumn in Avaza: Caspian environment ministers on 7 October, the Consultative Meeting of Central Asian heads of state with Azerbaijan on 8 October, and a session of the CIS Council of Heads of State on 9 October.
Russia's fuel export bans now reach into 2027
Alexander Novak put dates on the whole architecture on Saturday: petrol exports banned for all sellers through 31 January 2027, diesel for non-producers extended to the same day, jet fuel to 30 November, with producers regaining their diesel exemption on 1 September. For the region's importers, Russia's export calendar is now a winter planning document.
S&P returns Kazakhstan to BBB for the first time since 2016
S&P Global Ratings raised Kazakhstan's sovereign rating one notch to BBB with a stable outlook, in a decision reported on Saturday. The upgrade lands in a summer when the route that carries most of the country's export crude loads under drone attack.
Tashkent and Tbilisi retire the paper permit
Uzbekistan and Georgia have switched international road haulage to electronic permits, covering bilateral runs, transit and third-country shipments alike, under a memorandum signed during Mirziyoyev's visit to Georgia in July. Tashkent's transport ministry announced the launch this week.
The Bosphorus stops both ways for a hull the war already stopped
Istanbul suspended traffic in both directions on Friday morning to walk a casualty through the strait: the Liberian-flagged bulker Great Ocean, 289 m, struck by drones near the Kerch Strait entrance about a month ago, went south under tow to a repair yard.
Russia's border cameras have turned away 68,900 people
The interior ministry put a number on its biometric border experiment: about 14 million foreigners have given fingerprints and photographs at the checkpoints since December 2024, and 68,900 of them were on the entry-ban list and were refused. The count is cumulative, a running total rather than a surge. From 1 September it acquires a domestic partner: the Amina app becomes mandatory for visa-free arrivals in 11 regions, and in Moscow and its region the only way to register.
China opens a 10-day door for Kyrgyz passports
Kyrgyz citizens can now transit China without a visa for 240 hours, entering through any of 65 ports, and can spend 30 days in Hainan. The immigration administration's decision took effect on Thursday, 12 days before the summit Bishkek says Xi Jinping will attend.
Ten days before the guests, Bishkek audits the preparations
The city hosting the SCO summit has ordered a check of what the preparations cost. At Thursday's municipal collegium, mayor Aibek Dzhunushaliev's departments were told to verify expenditure on the summit and the World Nomad Games and to inform law enforcement "in the established manner".
Rogun spends three-quarters of its annual budget by August
Emomali Rahmon inspected Rogun and heard the year's arithmetic, in a visit Avesta reported on Friday: 8.4 billion of the 11.4 billion somoni allocated for 2026 is already spent, 7 months in. His instruction, delivered on the dam, was to finish "within the established timelines" and to have the reservoir at 1,140 m by early September.
Georgia's jailed ex-premier says the pressure now reaches his father
Irakli Gharibashvili, 8 months in custody, has sent a third statement out of prison. In a letter passed through an intermediary, netgazeti reports, he describes pressure to give evidence and a threat of arrest hanging over his 65-year-old father.
Ashgabat opens its hosting season with a Tajik signature
Serdar Berdimuhamedov received Tajik foreign minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin on Thursday, and the two foreign ministries signed a cooperation program for 2027 and 2028. The reception is advance work for an autumn in which Avaza hosts two summits.
Drones return to Nizhnekamsk, and the airports close before dawn
A massed drone attack crossed Tatarstan in the night into Thursday, densest over the Zakamsk industrial zone, 10 days after a strike on the same district killed 13 people, 9 of them Central Asian workers. Officials count injuries, no deaths. By Friday before dawn, flight restrictions reached Kazan, Samara and 5 more airports.
Uzbekistan auctions 2,500 river sites for small hydropower
Tashkent has identified about 3,000 potential sites for small and micro hydropower stations and put more than 2,500 of them up for auction, the first deputy energy minister said, a day after the president ordered the segment scaled up.
Dushanbe puts a number on the Iranian option: 2.55 million tons
Tajikistan has asked Iran for 2.55 million tons of crude and petroleum products, figures the Transport Ministry published from last week's Tehran talks, a request close to three times all freight now moving between the two countries.
An oil camp protest in Mongolia ends with an apology recorded by Beijing
A senior Mongolian official apologised to China's charge d'affaires after protesters raided the camp of a Chinese-invested oil explorer, the South China Morning Post reported, citing the Chinese embassy in Ulaanbaatar.