Central Asia

On the first Sunday of December Turkmenistan celebrates Day of Neighborliness that goes back to the ancestral national tradition "Gonsy okara".

At the State Security Council meeting on December 2, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov signed a decree on pardoning persons sentenced to imprisonment in honor of the national holiday - Day of Neutrality.

Kyrgyzstan will require 2,180,200,000 soms for welfare payments in 2010, Nazgul Tashpaeva, head of the State Social Security Agency said Friday during consideration of a Welfare Payments bill.

On Thursday Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev visited the new office of LUKOIL Oversiz company, reported press service of the Kazakh President.

The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) today opened an election assessment mission for the parliamentary elections to be held in Uzbekistan on 27 December. The deployment follows an invitation from the Uzbek authorities, OSCE website said.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev signed the bill "About the transfer from the National Fund of Kazakhstan for 2010-2012", reported press service of the President on Thursday.

The Asian Development Bank's (ADB's) President Haruhiko Kuroda and Republic of Uzbekistan's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Rustam Azimov on 1 December signed a $60 million loan agreement to support the government's efforts to strengthen the water supply and sanitation sector.

It is planned to revise size of benefits for socially vulnerable population of Kyrgyzstan in January, March, July and October 2010, Daniyar Usenov, the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan said Thursday at the forum devoted to training of personnel for public and municipal services.

The first consultative meeting on the preparation and holding of the International Conference on Disarmament Issues in Central Asia and Caspian Basin, scheduled for the first half of 2010 in Ashgabat, was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan on 2 December 2009.

A conference "The 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Contemporary Challenges and Innovations in the Republic of Kazakhstan" will be held at the Kazakh Foreign Ministry on 4 December 2009.