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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 9, No. 121, Part I, 27 June 2005: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Russia's Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) plan to invest a total of $80 million into Uzbekistan's cellular phone industry, "Biznes Vestnik Vostoka" and UzReport.com reported on 23 June. The EBRD has signed an agreement to provide Greece's Germanos SA, the owner of second-place Uzbek cellular provider Unitel, with a $30 million loan, "Biznes Vestnik Vostoka" reported. The EBRD owns a 7-percent stake in Unitel, which has 106,000 subscribers, or roughly 25 percent of the market in Uzbekistan. And UzReport.com quoted Vasilii Sidorov, the president of Russian cellular provider MTS, as saying that MTS plans to invest $50 million into extending networks and improving service in Uzbekistan. MTS purchased a controlling stake in leading Uzbek operator Uzdunrobita in 2004 (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 19 July 2004). DK

From RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 9, No. 122, Part I, 28 June 2005: Russia's Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) announced in a 27 June press release on the company's website (http://www.company.mts.ru) that it has purchased a 51-percent stake in U.S.-registered Barash Communications Technologies, Inc., the leading cellular operator in Turkmenistan, for $28.05 million. MTS is obligated to purchase the remaining 49 percent of the company, provided "certain conditions" are met, within eight months for a price not exceeding $26.95 million. The press release noted that Barash has 59,100 subscribers, or 97 percent of the market in Turkmenistan, where cell phone penetration remains less than 1 percent of the population. Olga Zhilinskaya, an analyst for Moscow-based investment company Renaissance Capital, told gazeta.ru that Turkmenistan is "one of the fastest-growing" markets in the CIS. DK

"In a society struggling to deal with the challenges of recent independence and where reliable information is notoriously inaccessible, broad availability of the Internet represents an ideal step towards a more informed population, able to more dynamically face its new difficulties. Addressing this gap is the program ‘School Connectivity for Uzbekistan,’ a unique project funded by the U.S. government and implemented by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) in cooperation with Uzbekistan’s telecommunications and education authorities." by Ari Katz, School Connectivity for Uzbekistan, at Digital Divide Network, December 10, 2004

"In theory the combination of state control and limited access to the net should have barred Uzbekistan’s way to latest reports about the brewing revolt in the country, increasingly available in Uzbek & Russian online. But as report Daniil Kislov and Andrei Kudriashov, partners in Index on Censorship’s 2004 Ferghana Valley projects, that would be seriously underestimating the Uzbeks' desire for information... The popularity of the Internet as an unofficial source of information is growing. You often hear ordinary citizens – people who don’t know how to use a computer, the people buying and selling in the bazaars, taxi-drivers – passing on news that someone has picked up on the Internet." from Index for Free Expression, May 19, 2005

Article found on ferghana.ru "Internet , computers: In Tashkent Internet cafes fenrana.ru costs higher than "porn"" describes the censorship in Tashkent Internet cafes. The photo was taken by the journalists in the Internet cafe near Chilanzar metro station in Tashkent. The list, posted by the Internet cafe administration, includes the pricelist and the varieties of fines for violation of the Internet cafe rules. The article emphasizes possible violations of the rules of the internet cafe. Which states that the fine for: browsing of the porn web sites: 5000 sum (about 5 USD) damage of the computer equipment : 20.000 sum (about 20 USD) and browsing of the political sites as: fergana.ru, centrasia, etc, is strictly prohibited! And the fine is: 10.000 sum (about 10 USD) The article expresses funny comments on the posting, stating that probably the site fergana.ru is considered more dangerous than Porn sites for the moral degradation of the Uzbek citizens. The publishers express their gratitude to the National security services (meaning that that such rules were probably made under their instruction) for the effective and cheap advertising campaign of their site. The link to the article provided : http://www.fergana.ru/4printer.php?id=3784&mode=none