Central Asia

Days of Turkmen Culture are currently under way in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The International Monetary Fund will grant Kyrgyzstan $25.5 million in form of credit tranche, the news agency ITAR-TASS reported with reference to press service of the fund.

A conference that encouraged Central Asian countries to sign a protocol on pollutant release and transfer registers, supported by the OSCE, ended on May 21 in Dushanbe, reports the press release of the OSCE Office in Dushanbe.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev offered investors from CIS states to invest into construction projects in Astana.

Kyrgyz Centralized Fund for Poverty Reduction allocated about 85 million soms for issue of new textbooks in 2009, chief of the department for preproduction and publication of textbooks of the Kyrgyz Education and Science Ministry Guljigit Soronkuliv informed.

A new Museum of ethnography and local history, which is part of the main complex of the National Museum of Turkmenistan, was opened in Ashgabat on 18 May. The upgrade and construction works were carried out by Turkish company Polimeks.

2-day symposium of German textile technologies in central Asia started its work in Tashkent on May 19.

The Security Council has held a meeting chaired by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev in Astana.

Size of pension will rise by 50 percent since July 1, 2009. The statement was voiced at the meeting of the Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev with the Prime Minister Igor Chudinov on Tuesday, May 19, presidential press service reported.

The President of Turkmenistan received the Makhtumkuli Fragi Memorial Medal with identification N 1, which was established by the administration of Astrakhan region of the Russian Federation on the occasion of the inauguration of a monument to the great Turkmen poet.